The Biggest Girl EVER Goes to Preschool

Keira started preschool on Wednesday--what, I didn't mention that, like, 87 times in the past month?--and despite my apprehension, the whole thing went down beautifully. When we left the house that morning, she told Bear, "Daddy, I'm going to preschool all by myself! I'm going to be the BIGGEST GIRL EVER!!!!!" (and yes, there were actually that many exclamation points in her voice). In what can only be described as incredibly cruel timing, my camera had suffered a water immersion tragedy the day before, so all I had was my cell phone camera to capture this monumental moment as we waited outside the classroom:


Our little Cubby has a cubby now. And a teacher...and a lunch box...and a wee backpack that's just her size. Sniff! She cried for a brief moment when I told her it was time for me to go, saying, "But I don't want to be here all alone!" but after I reminded her that all her friends, her teacher, and three mommy helpers were there, she hugged me and ran to play.

As for me? I found sanctuary at the nearest Mom Mecca, a.k.a. Target, where I replaced my soggy camera with a dry one (and a cute, but most importantly, waterproof case) and kept a close eye on my cell phone in case of a "Please come collect your sobbing child" phone call...which never came. I doubt anyone would be surprised to learn that I did make a tiny detour to peek in the door about halfway through the three hours, and found that she was playing happily with her new friends. Cue wistful mom-tears.

At pickup time, she greeted me indifferently at first, but then burst out, "Mommy, I had so much fun! I'm ready to go home now!" The teacher, Miss M., said she did great and is "so funny to talk to," but that she "definitely has a mind of her own" (I'll pretend not to know that's Teacher Code for "can be a little stinker") because she didn't want to join in for Circle Time and had to be talked into doing one of the crafts. We had a little talk about being a good listener, so we'll see how she does next week.

Finally, if I may indulge myself in a little braggery, here are some pics of Keira and her new obsession: writing and spelling. As with all of her interests, this one stemmed not entirely from our influence, but from a TV show: she's now addicted to "Word World" on PBS! As I've blathered on about before, I'm no fan of competitive parenting and don't care whether she's the first or last kid her age ever to do this stuff; but I am a mom and a teacher, which means I get a ridiculous amount of excitement out of every new thing the girls learn!

Her portrait of Pretty, with "fly" spelled backward at the bottom (she asked me how to spell it while I was making dinner, but I didn't realize she was actually writing it):


She knows how to write her name now:


And here she is at Elliana's 1-year checkup, writing on the new dry-erase board I scored from the dollar section at Target:

While Bear was scrolling through the cable guide the other night, she started reading off letters and was so stinking proud of herself that I had to catch some of it on video:

Now, to balance out all this unabashed braggery, I should also mention that I've recently had to lecture her on why it is NOT okay to wipe her bogeys all over the inside of the car door. This resulted in her coming into my school's office with Bear for lunch on Tuesday, seeing me across the room, and yelling, "Mommy, I didn't wipe ANY bogeys on the car door this time!!" in front of the entire office staff and a few parents who were waiting to pick up their kids. So, you know...it's all relative. Still, I couldn't be more proud of my smartypants, newly-independent little girl!