First Day of School

Today was Beatrice's first day* at St. Mark's Preschool!

And she arrived with quite the entourage: her aunts Mina and Maureen, her uncle James, and her cousins Rosemary and Louis all came to see her off, plus of course me, Dev, and Arthur.

When I dropped her off this morning, I was a little worried about how she would do on her first day alone at school. When I came back again to pick her up after lunch, I walked into the Red Room and announced "Mommy's here!" Beatrice didn't even look up from the play kitchen sink as she said, "I'm washing dishes in the sink!" Also she was completely covered in blue paint.

Beatrice's teachers told me that she loved preschool, participated enthusiastically in every activity, and never cried once. In fact, she refused to leave. I was only able to coax her into the car by promising her a First Day of School Victory Doughnut but since I can't give her doughnuts every day, I'm not quite sure how I'll get her to leave next time.

Beatrice takes off to explore on her own

Beatrice is in school Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:00am-1pm (though we may later switch to a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule). Every day they have free play time inside and out as well as songs, dancing, crafts, a circle time lesson, a snack, and lunch. Today on the way home Beatrice talked enthusiastically about the sandbox, painting, snack time, lunch, and her new friend Adeline (who, Beatrice reported, cried because she wanted to kiss her mommy).

Since she's too young to read notes in her lunchbox, I printed out a bunch of family photos to include instead. Beatrice's teacher said she was delighted with the photo of Shackleton in her lunch and showed it to all the other kids.

Beatrice's cubby

Beatrice enjoys a celebratory half-doughnut on the way home from school

*Well, her first official day. The preschool recommends new students come to school a few times first with their parents and so twice last month Dev and I sat in on her class, met her teachers, and observed a typical day. On Dev's visit they even got popsicles.