Anyway, Tuesday was orientation day. Basically a teaser day for mothers as we can't actually leave our children with these wonderful teachers and a day for the teachers to "size up" the new kiddies in their classes (probably just figuring out who to give the sedatives to). Lasts one hour - tops. No biggie, right?
Wrong!
We did this last year. Exact same thing. Very casual. No problems. This year. Different. Story.
There is a short speech from the Director of the Preschool and a couple of the program assistants. Then we march out of the sanctuary (preschool is at a church) room by room as the children's teachers' names are called out. As my girls are in different classes I tend to "float" between classrooms as my lovely children play with their new found friends in their respective classes. That's the plan anyway. I'm a sucker for mapped out plans. I'm actually just a sucker in this story.
We walk into Ashlyn's teacher's room first. All the other (10) children are already sitting at the cute little tables coloring the adorable apple pictures that have their names on them. Ashlyn lurches and is suddenly permanently attached to my leg.
Say what?!?
This is HIGHLY unusual. My kids are the ones that truly want to know where the "party's at" and want to "get this party started" when in new group situations. What the heck?!? I literally can't peel Ash off my leg. And - of course - not to be outdone - Anna decides to join the leg-clutching party. I can barely make it through the doorway.
These 10 kids sitting nicely at the tables? All have at least one parent/guardian there with them. ALL staring at us. Lovely.
I shimmy us into the door hoping my new leg warmers will release themselves and turn into civilized human beings again. No. Such. Luck.
The teacher is continuing with her "welcome" speech and ignoring the three of us and hoping as much as I do that this performance will end quickly.
Then Ashlyn says (in a voice loud and shrill enough for the whole preschool to hear), "I don't like this teacher!" I get sympathetic looks from a few moms and disgusted looks from a few others. Lovely.
At this point, after several minutes of trying to silently pry my children off myself, we decide to shimmy out the door into Anna's classroom - hoping for a miracle. Yeah, right.
Anna - not to be outdone by Ashlyn - behaves the same way in her classroom. Great - another 10 kids/10 parents.
I am stumped. Truly stumped. I know that if I get upset with them that the situation will worsen, but I literally just want to haul their butts out of there - preferably in some sort of time machine that will allow me to delete this whole hour from everyone's memory. So we calmly walk out the door and discuss ALL THE WAY home what happened.
Now - once all of us settled down I realized what happened. Yes - my girls like being a part of the action, but they don't want to be the last ones to show up. We walked into each classroom that was already full of no less than 20 people each. Looking back - it was a bit intimidating and I'm sure the girls were just overwhelmed. I was hoping that was all there was to it.
I promised the girls we would go to school early on Thursday and there wouldn't be near as many people in the classrooms then. We talked about this plan the rest of the day Tuesday, all day Wednesday and Thursday morning. Worked like a charm. It was like Tuesday had never happened. Both girls strode right in and started playing with their new friends. I explained my theory to both teachers (hoping to redeem myself in some way) and both teachers were completely sympathetic and agreed with my theory. Or - they were just lying through their teeth and just wanted me out of their room. Either way works for me.
So - after all that - here are some pics from their first full day of school. Anna is in the Supergirl shirt and Ashlyn is in the Princess shirt.
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