Preschool Prep

Our 4 1/2 year old little man is in preschool 5 mornings a week now.  It is going great.

I am quite an idealist, and rarely do my ideals work out to fruition the way I think they should, but this one did.  I wanted to keep Christian home until the year before kindergarten, and was able to.  In looking at the prices of preschools a few years ago, we were discouraged.  How on earth were we going to do this?

We ended up qualifying for Clovis Unified's free preschool, which is a huge blessing.

I'm not disappointed that his first preschool experience isn't a Christian one.  I feel God has had His hand in all of this and knew exactly where He wanted Christian to start his schooling.  I have had great peace about sending Christian to this preschool and it's all been confirmed now that it's started.  I love love love that we live close enough (.9 miles to be exact!) that it's become our norm to walk to school every morning.  This walking time has become treasured time with Christian (and Kate, she rides in the stroller).  We started a collection in a jar of all the special things he finds on our walks; we pray for his teachers and he chooses one classmate to pray for.  He asks every night before bed if we get to walk to school in the morning!



At the "meet & greet" a few days before school started, all the kids and their parents came on a Thursday morning to see the classroom and meet the teachers.

Oh, backing up.  I had done some research on Christian's main teacher and learned she lives close to us, in our same layout actually.  It just so happens that I pass directly by her house every morning while I'm on the street that I pray for Christian on (more on that later).  Just so many God pieces fitting together.

I had no idea how emotional I'd be about this "meet and greet" and it all kind of hit when one of the teachers (there are 3) asked Christian to come take a picture for his cubby. He sat up on the table as asked and just looked so vulnerable and willing to follow instructions!  There was one point where I thought, if anyone asks me how I'm doing right now, there is no doubt in my mind I'm going to burst into tears.  Not sure I've ever felt equal parts excited for him and sad at the same time, but that pretty much sums it up

 

 He was immediately drawn to the blocks and instruments
 

 And then we went home and waited for Monday. And I tried not to think about it being his last few mornings at home with me. He kept asking when Monday would come! We did some school shopping and Grandma treated him to some new school clothes.

 



Yeah, I am getting way too wordy here but there's just nothing I want to cut out about this monumental time.  I'll have to share about the actual first day in another post.