Ethan's First Day of Pre-K 3!

 

Don't judge, but I really had no intentions of being sentimental as I dropped my three year old to his first day of PreK-3 at our church, Hahira United Methodist Church. For a child who has been taken care of by others at a child care center since he was eight weeks old and the fact that it is our church who is doing the program, you would naturally think this would be a piece of cake for any child. But, with my Ethan, my pre-conceived notion would only be that I would drop him off, watch him cry as I left and feel bad for leaving him as I always have. HAHA, my kid seriously threw me for a loop this morning and as soon as I got in the car, tears were welling up in my eyes as I called his Daddy to tell him how our drop-off went. We took our ceremonious first day of school photos, went inside and greeted everyone, filled out a fun filled fact sheet about Ethan and immediately found something fun to play with. Ms. Dana(one of Ethan's teachers) was spot-on when she mentioned play-doh! I told Ethan I was going to go and he was too enthralled with play-doh to even notice me! What? Is this my child? I finally got him to give me a hug and told him to "Have a Great Day!" with an over-exaggerated voice and he replies with a big smile, "Ok, Mommy. I will!" Anyone who knows my child well enough, knows he's reserved and has some anxiety when being left with people he's not familiar with. Well, not today!

Just one smile, Ethan!!

 

 

Mommy & Ethan

Fast forward, three hours later for pick-up, and he was smiling in his little blue chair with his oversized bag hanging on his arms waiting for his Mommy to pick him up. I loved how his teachers were so eager to tell me all about his first day in detail and I could tell he, in fact, had a great day! To solidify it, Ethan says on the way to the car, "Mommy, I want to go back to Vacation Bible School(VBS) and I want you to leave me." Yup, another proud mommy moment. And yes, we have been calling it Vacation Bible School because PK-3 is at our church and Ms. Dana taught VBS and we wanted him to feel comfortable. Whatever works, eh? So, Day One: Check. A Big, Awesome, Check!

This next little tid-bit is more for myself to re-cap at the end of the school year. As Ethan enters his year of PK-3, he can identify about half of the alphabet, identify numbers 1-10 and count almost to 30. He is completely self sufficient when it comes to getting dressed/undressed with the occasional silly antics he pulls to make us laugh. He's familiar with common shapes and colors and absolutely loves anything arts & crafts. He literally just started writing his name on his own(capital letters) which has totally blown us away since we haven't been pushing or practicing. Ethan knows his full name as well as him Mommy's and Daddy's, the city and state in which he lives, and his birthday. Ethan is very social and warm around those he is very comfortable with and can be shy around friends/people he doesn't see as often; very much like his daddy. His favorite color is blue and favorite food is anything that's bad for him, lol. He really does love all kinds of fruit, hamburgers and french fries. Ethan still does not like any kind of vegetable. His imagination is out of this world and loves re-enacting story books that we read to him or movies that he watches. Right now, his favorite books are anything to do with Jesus or stories from the Bible, and we hope to keep it that way! Ethan loves his baby sister so much and can't get enough of kissing her/my belly, making silly faces to her and "making her laugh" in my belly. Again, we are hoping it stays that way once she is here! I'm eager to watch him and grow and learn through this school year and feeling very blessed to have such an amazing young boy as my son. Love you my shoogs!!!

After a fun-filled day!!!