her first day

last week, this one had her first day of preschool.  she most definitely was not ready to go last year and so we happily kept her home.  but somewhere along the way, she suddenly grew up on me and became very excited about going to “her own” school.

i think allie’s glowing reports about her school (which she is continuing to LOVE, thank the Lord!) might have influenced the little sister.  a little.

all dressed and ready to tackle the big wide world of preschool.  (she couldn’t be convinced to wear the white sandals and chose the purple crocs instead.  she’s a third kid, so i didn’t press too hard.  or at all.)

daddy bought her a ‘punzel’ backpack just her size.  loved. it.  even though i had already ordered her an adorable bee packback the week earlier.  adorable, i tell you!  that one had to go back once she saw this one.

so. excited.

ready to step in to her new adventure!  (we left the backpack in the car because, uh, it’s preschool after all…)  so daddy thankfully happened to be post-call that morning and could take the other three to drop off allie at school so that i could go and stay with lauren a bit to help her adjust to her new class.  he ended up driving back to our house just as i was leaving and decided to follow us to lauren’s school so that he could see her start her very first day, too.  that daddy.  so sweet.

picture with her teacher fail.  could not get this girl to smile (or get her hands out of her mouth) for nothing.

she was all business as she went around and did a few of the activities they had set out.

no trouble finding her own little basket!

checking out a dollhouse.  all business.  no smile.

another dollhouse.  all business.  no smile.  but thankfully no tears, either.

yep.  this is how lauren enters a new experience.  very serious, very quiet, but doesn’t want to leave either.  it takes her a while to warm up and look like she’s actually having fun.

but that’s okay.  she still hangs in there and does her own thing.

surprise, surprise!  the teacher managed to get a smile out of her.  a canned one, but a smile nonetheless.  i totally thought she was going to stare that camera down.

it soon came time for me to slip out and lauren was happy to stay behind and continue playing with the colored rice.

meanwhile, back at the house, mikey and i took on homeschooling one-on-one.  a very different experience for the both of us!  he liked it but mentioned that it was too quiet.  he missed his little pipsqueak sister who would always stand right next to him and poke his arm every couple minutes to show him something or tell him something or just to make sure he’s still there.  annoying for sure.  but he missed her all the same.

but the time to go pick her up came soon enough and she came out saying she had a great first day!

but i think this was their most favorite part of the day.  at least it was mine.

ps- the nice thing about moving back instead of moving away is that lauren gets to go to the same preschool her two older sibs went to.  in our family where each kid was born in a different hospital, was brought home to a different home, and don’t have too many of the same experiences, it’s pretty cool that they each got to go to the same preschool.  a flood of memories came back for mikey as soon as we walked inside.  even down to “hey mommy!  i remember the smell of this hallway!”

click here to see mikey and allie’s first day in this same school.  back when they were peanuts.

and this was back when allie was the one playing with the rice bin (thankfully it looks like the rice has since been changed!) and baby sister was all about trying to be one of the “big” kids.

and look at her now!

sniff.