First Day of (Nursery) School

Today Maddie had her first day of nursery school.  Even though I'm not quite caught up on posting pictures from the summer, I couldn't wait to share this milestone.  Before we had children and when Maddie was younger, I decided that I wanted to hold off formal schooling as long as possible.  I thought we might not do any nursery/preschool at all and if we did, definitely not more than one year.  Fast forward a few years, and yet again I'm eating my words in regards to a parenting decision.  While there are certainly some decisions that I think should not be subject change, I've learned that 90% of parenting is adapting as we learn, get to see who exactly our children are, and start eating slice after slice of humble pie as I realize my earlier pronouncements were self-righteous, ignorant or based on pride!  (For the record, Andy was very easygoing and never felt particularly strongly about when Maddie started school.  He balances out my constant over-analyzing...)  Turns out Maddie was more than ready for nursery school and after talking about it all last year when most of her friends began to go, we decided to sign her up for this year.  It's only two days a week for a couple hours a day, but I think it'll be a great time for her to play with other kids and satiate her desire to constantly do projects, practice letters, sing songs and play on the playground.  I'll still do all these things with her, but it'll relieve me a bit from the constant begging to produce crafting supplies and sing songs with elaborate hand motions (I hope).

All of that blathering is to say that Maddie was REALLY excited to go to school given she was the one who basically requested to go.  Unfortunately Hurricane Irene damaged the school (which is affiliated with a church in the area although it's not a religious program per se).  School started two weeks late while things got sorted out, but finally we went for orientation today.  My parents are out of town, but thankfully my Aunt Mariane was willing to babysit Avonlea so my full attention could be on Madeleine.  Turns out that Maddie didn't care much about my full attention--after I walked her to her classroom I expected a big goodbye when I had to leave her to go to the parent meeting but she barely glanced back at me!  (It was good that Avvie wasn't there because there was a lot of paperwork to fill out, parties to sign up as helpers/cupcake-makers for, etc.)  When I went to get Maddie at the end, I peeked in and she was sitting at a table coloring with the other kids while the teacher spoke to them with the biggest smile on her face.  She had a great time and can't wait to go back.  On the way home she confided me "I think I made a new friend today!"  Oh my, how I love that little girl (even if she did act a tad bratty before we left for school...)!

And now for several pictures that are almost exactly the same but she's so cute that I can't help myself:

 

This summer I took her shopping for a first day of school dress.  I'm not sure how well you can see in these pictures, but it has little paper dolls and dresses printed all over it.  Madeleine adores this dress and has been dying to wear it since we got it.  I let her wear it for the first day of Sunday School (which she also loved!) but other than that it's been waiting for today.

 

Here she is proudly wearing her Peppa Pig backpack from Nonna.

 

 

She was chomping at the bit to go to her classroom while we waited in the main room.

She was excited to see Avvie and tell her about her day.  (After we picked Avvie up, in the backseat I could hear Maddie telling Avvie about her morning.)

I hope that Madeleine has happy years of learning and loving school ahead of her.  I was fortunate to have many wonderful teachers throughout my schooling and I have fond memories from all my levels of education.  Maddie's most important learning will hopefully be done in the context of our home and church, but I'm excited and hopeful that she can have years of valuable and treasured schooling in a brick and mortar setting. (She comes from a family of teachers--one grandmother, an uncle and three aunts--so I'm sure she'll know what a privilege it is to be a student and how much her teachers deserve her respect!)