Starting pre-school

This post by: Brian

Karalee was pretty disappointed that she had to miss Joshua's first week of school, so I figured I'd put up a post about it.

Wednesday (9/5/12) was Joshua's first day of school.  I could tell he was pretty nervous about it.  Dad's are pretty observant like that.  My first, and really only, clue was that when he woke up at 7:00 he asked if he was going to school that day.  I said he was.  He then threw himself to the floor and cried until almost 8:00 that he didn't want to go.  It made it difficult to get him through his morning routine.

I finally got him to eat breakfast during which I convinced him that I really wanted to go to school.  Unfortunately they wouldn't let me because I was too big.  Minna piped in that she wanted to go to school too (which is probably true) and I had to admit that Minna couldn't go because she was too small.  Only Joshua was the right size.  That made him feel better and he decided going to school would be alright.

When we got to his school, I realized I had forgotten the camera.  Karalee wanted some pictures of me dropping him off.  Just to highlight Joshua's change of heart, I held Minna's hand and asked Joshua if he wanted to hold my other hand.  He wanted no part of it.  He was going to go to school on his own. 

Minna and I ran some errands and I ran home to get the camera so I could take some pictures when I picked up Joshua.  I left Minna in the van while I ran in to get the camera and when I came out this is what I found. 















Then I took some pictures of Joshua when I picked him up.  He also had a painting he had done.  It's watercolors but when I asked Joshua he kept telling me it was not, it was paint.

Two other memorable happenings with Joshua starting school.  The first is Minna.  She really misses Joshua.  On Thursday when we were walking back to the van from dropping Joshua off, she stopped on the sidewalk and looked down.  She wouldn't look at me.  When I asked if she missed Joshua she said kind of grunted and nodded.  Then she buried her head in my shoulder which is very un-Minna like.  Friday was a little better, but she misses having Joshua around in the mornings.  Hopefully having Miriam around will soften the blow.

The other memorable thing was my fault.  I forgot that Friday is show and tell.  I remembered when we pulled into the parking lot.  Joshua's first "homework" and I forgot it.  So I looked in the van and found the kids' helmets.  I grab it and tell Joshua he can use that and talk about how much he likes riding his bike.  I think the idea of having to talk to his whole class made him nervous because he started crying that he didn't want to go to school.  One of his teachers, he has three, was really great and told him he didn't have to even bring the helmet out for show and tell if he didn't want to.  He calmed down and stopped crying by the time we had been in the room for a couple of minutes. 

When I came and picked him up I asked how he had done.  Apparently he got up during show and tell and did fine.  He pulled out the helmet and told everyone that it was his sister's helmet.  Oops!  I can never remember which helmet belongs to which kid.  So Joshua showed everyone his sister's helmet for his first show and tell.