Julia's First Preschool Experience

Julia started preschool in August. She was so excited. She had a new backpack from one grandmother and a new lunchbox from the other grandmother.

The night before school, I made Julia a special lunch:

That day, I had to work but Aaron was off, so I charged him with taking lots of photos!

It's pretty crazy to think her first day of school was only 3 months after our graduation. That's a sure sign that we were students for way too long ;-)

We signed up for preschool late last spring, and, unbeknownst to us, the class Julia was supposed to be in was full (older twos). So, she was put in the younger twos class. At the open house, she was going around, putting out her hand, introducing herself (by her full name, of course... haha!). A lot of the other kids had thumbs in their mouths clinging to their moms' legs. She was also the only one who was potty trained. It is amazing how much development happens in that year!

After the first day of school, Julia came home and said (about her classmates), "Those babies are smaller than Mickey Mouse!"

According to one of the teachers at the school, Julia was a mother hen with her little classmates. That teacher gushed to us about how proud of her we should be because she was so sweet with all the other students, helping to shepherd them to where they needed to go, helping them with their shoes, etc.

Julia seemed to like it well enough there, however, she quickly began picked up something new at school that we weren't crazy about... baby talk. She started using baby talk all. the. time. Seriously, it became an every day battle to get her to talk like she used to (in full, comprehensible paragraphs) instead of lisping, one or two word phrases, which was frustrating and tiring for us. It's interesting how kids try to assimilate even from such a young age.

In October, she stayed home sick for a week, and then had a week of fall break, and, away from school, the baby talk completely resolved. We decided we didn't want to keep paying for Julia to regress... so that was that. We pulled her out. We officially have a preschool drop-out on our hands ;-) The school was very kind about it, and assured us she would have a place there if we wanted it back, which I appreciated.

Now we've been touring schools, trying to figure out what we're going to do for preschool this fall.... so I'll be sure to share "Julia's first day of school" photos, round 2, in a few months! :-)