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Well, that day has finally come. Today was Madeline’s first day of preschool!

Yes, she is a now all grown up. (Insert sounds of mommy sobbing). Today was her first day of preschool! She was pretty well prepared since we have been talking about it for months. Daddy and mommy even took her to preschool last week for an open house so she could meet her teachers and see her classroom. She loved it. And I took her on Tuesday for a warm up day. That was a pretty funny experience.

The warm up day was pretty short (1.5 hours compared to 3 hours of a normal day). She remembered the school from the open house last week and immediately went over to the play kitchen area. She took out almost all of the food and set it up at the table there (which was set with a lace tablecloth, a candle, and some flowers in a vase). She was having a little party. Then she discovered a basket filled with various dress up items. On that stuff went. She put on a dress, then a tulle skirt with flowers over the dress, a boa, princess slippers, and a tall pointy princess hat that had tulle and ribbons hanging down. She had that on for about an hour while she was having her little party at the table. So cute. A few kids would come over and check it out, but they never stayed for long. I have never seen her so focused on one thing before. Other kids were painted, playing with blocks, trucks, beans, etc., but not Maddie! So her.

Then the teacher asked that they come sit in a circle to hear a story and sing songs. Maddie has never really been one to voluntarily participate in a song where as the other kids were totally into it. Maybe that is because she had not heard the song before. It was something about a beanbag and the kids were supposed to put the beanbag on various body parts. Maddie just held hers with a “what the heck are these people doing” look on her face. Then the teacher asked if they knew any songs. Oh yes Maddie did and she wanted everyone to know. She started to sing a song from Cinderella: “Cinderellee, Cinderellee, we can help our Cinderelle. Make her dress so pretty. Nothing to it really.” It was hilarious! I think the teacher was hoping for something that everyone could sing along to. Then they started to sing ‘Jesus Loves Me’ and Maddie said very loudly, “I don’t like that song”. Well, at least she isn’t afraid of voicing her opinions! Needless to say, the warm up day went well!

So on to today. I had been telling Maddie that I would drop her off at preschool, not stay with her like I did during the warm up day, and them come back later to pick her up. She was a little hesitant about this idea at first (this was when I first told her on Tuesday) but by the end up the day on Tuesday she knew what to expect for today. I woke her up at about 7:15 this morning and the first words out of her mouth every morning are, “Were we going today mommy?”. Today she asked the same question and immediately followed it up with, “Preschool!” She was already excited. Oh good.

So we eat breakfast and put on our pretty new dress and put a ponytail in her hair with a red ribbon (she is totally into accessorizing). Then she saw her cherry ponytail holder and was trying to rip out the pretty ponytail I had just put in her hair. It took a little bit to calm her down and then she said, “Actually, I like the red ribbon. I do mommy. I like it.” Oh good. Crisis over.

I, as any mommy would do and as someone who takes way too many pictures, had to do a ‘mini’ photo session before we left for preschool. She was so cute and so excited. We took pictures outside by the front door and she was all smiles and giggles and games. So silly. I ended up taking about 130 pictures! Hee hee.

I have to admit that I was holding back the tears a little bit as we were driving to preschool. I didn’t want Maddie to see me getting all chocked up. Don’t laugh people. It is a bitter sweet day when your daughter has her first day of preschool (or any school) and you have to leave them with someone else and you just know they are growing up. So we get to preschool and of course I had to take more pictures outside.

We got to her classroom and she immediately wanted to show the teachers her pictures that she brought. The kids all had to bring a baby picture of themselves, a picture of their family, and a current picture of themselves for their cubby. It all went into her little princess backpack. So cute. Then, she pulled me around her classroom continually saying, “I want to show you something” as if I had not been there with her all the previous times. She was just so excited. And of course she ended up right back at the play kitchen and with the dress up items. I tried to take a few pictures of that too but she just wouldn’t hold still so they are a bit blurry. You can check out all the pics in the gallery.

So there she was, all dressed up in princess clothes, at the little table with the lace tablecloth, feeding a baby a bottle, and then I told her that it was time for me to leave. She looked at me with a straight face and said, “Bye mommy” then looked back at her baby doll. That was it? No meltdown? No catastrophe? No crying? I was able to at least get a hug and a kiss. Then I went to my car, took a deep breath, and tried not to cry.

I now had three hours to myself!

When I went to pick her up from preschool, she was busy using large tweezers to pull rubber snakes out of a bin of sand. She was so excited to show me that, then again proceeded to lead me around the classroom so that I could check things out. She had made a very pretty colorful macaroni necklace which she was wearing. She also used a toy car to paint on paper. And apparently they played outside and she picked up a broom and began to sweep… and told the teacher that the ground was dirty and it needed to be cleaned up and handed her a broom as well. I was told that Maddie has the broom in her hands for the entire 50 minutes of outside play. Now, if I could only get her to clean up around the house!

After I saw everything again in the preschool room again it was time to go. I about had to drag her out of there. Then we met daddy for lunch at Daphne’s (per Maddie’s request) so that she could share her very fist day of preschool with us. So cute. I love her.