Rigel's 2nd First Day of School

Yesterday was Rigel's first day of preschool (again). Originally, he was enrolled in a Monday through Friday program at the beginning of the school year, but we decided to pull him out after the first week and find something different. Now, a month later, he is beginning a 2-day a week half-day program.

We made the mistake of informing Rigel the night before that he would be going to preschool in the morning, and boy did that complicate matters. From the moment he woke up to when the teacher pried his fingers off from around Dan's neck and carried him out to the playground, he was in protest. We also thought maybe Izzy would benefit from the school's program for 2 year-olds, but we could hear her screams and howls from the parking lot--she didn't understand why we had left her. The scene was so distressing, that Dan and I sat outside the preschool debating whether we should even go through with this whole "preschool thing." We went back inside, discussed our concerns with the preschool director, and resolved to wait until Izzy got a bit older before enrolling her.

When the director delivered the message to Rigel that Izzy was too little for preschool and was going to go home, Rigel asked her to "move out of the way" of his tricycle. 2 hours later, when I stopped back in to sneak a peak at him (paranoid mom that I am), he caught me standing outside his classroom. He smiled, waved, and disappeared from my view. Whew! What a relief to know that he is comfortable with this new environment, especially after the big fight he put up in the beginning.

Now, Izzy and I get some one-on-one bonding time for the first time, though at first she kept asking, "where's Rigel at?" or, "go get Rigel?" The funny thing is, once it was just her and me, she was coming alive in way that I had never seen. For instance, there was an audio book on the car stereo that Rigel always narrates along with, but this time Izzy was reciting all the words and sound effects. She had known all the words this whole time, yet never said them aloud!

The preschool is right across the street from a library and park, too, so we had a little fun when school was out and had time to kill before swim class. I've already been in touch with the librarian about volunteering for an after school story time. We'll see how it goes...