First Day of Preschool

After such a fun and leisurely summer with no schedule, today hit me like a ton of bricks.  There has been so much lead-up to this much anticipated day for Sydney, her first day of preschool.  We had been talking about it for months and I could hardly believe that they day was upon us!

I had visions of having this magical morning with Sydney, sitting quietly over a special breakfast, choosing new school clothes to wear together and stuffing her backpack with everything we'd need for that first day, before leisurely taking pictures to capture the magic of this morning.

The morning ended up taking on a frenetic pace that I care not to repeat!  Early this morning, before I had even woken up, Paul called his office to pick up the messages from the weekend.  As a result of a strange string of events, it ended up that neither of his staff members could make it into the office today due to family emergencies.

This meant that my morning started with me flying out of bed and frantically trying to call and catch our first patients of the day before they left home, to tell them that we would be unable to see them today.  I quickly realized that with needing to stay with Sydney this morning for gradual entry into preschool, I was going to have to pretty much cancel the entire day's worth of patients before Syd and I left the house at 8:15am in order to reach everyone in time.

So the first few hours of my morning were a blur of phone calls, messages, texts and madly writing notes all the while trying to get Sydney dressed and ready for school and get myself in a somewhat presentable state too.

I was stressed and sweating and flying around the house like an idiot, but it all happened and Syd and I got off to school in great time!

Just love my little sweetie, with her new ladybug backpack, waiting to leave this morning!  Hard to believe that three short years ago that was my baby!

Sydney had a fabulous morning at school!  Within minutes of arriving, she was happily playing on her own, drawing on the easel, playing with the water and sand table and rolling and cutting play dough.  In fact, the only time she was a bit clingy with me was when she looked up and saw me, I think my presence there might have been taking away from her first day experience somewhat, in fact!

It warmed my heart to see Sydney interacting with her friends, both new and old, and so enjoying herself in her new classroom.  She was chatting with the teachers with such ease, I felt so confident that she is going to rock this year at school!

When our morning was done, I asked her what her favourite part was and she said, without hesitation, "the playdough!"  Such a simple thing, but so meaningful to her!

We drove down to Paul's office right after school and spent the better part of the day there helping with a few patients that showed up in the end, responding to messages and doing paperwork!  It was a much busier day that I had imagined!

Sydney fell asleep in the car on the way home late this afternoon so I had a few quiet moments to myself to catch my breath.

Just as I was starting to unwind, I got a text from my friend Lori who had dropped off a platter with some delicious plum desserts on our front porch!  What a perfect surprise on a special and busy day like today!

So it was a Monday in the truest sense of the word today, but such a special day for Sydney and a milestone that I won't soon forget!