A Big Day

To start off, today was a Huge Day for Lily!

But first, a little back story.

In the middle of November we started to really wonder why Lily wasn't adjusting to her preschool like she should. She's smart, outgoing, and really a lovely little girl so we we didn't know why she wasn't embracing preschool like we thought she would. So, we started to analyze. We realized that on our way to school at the same point in the drive every T/R she would say she had to go to the bathroom. As soon as we got to school, we would run in so that she would make it, we would and then go on to her classroom. Her demeanor would change instantly as we would make that turn out of the bathroom to go to her room. :( So, I stuck around despite the, let's say, lack of gracious welcoming by her teacher. Emma and I walked around the school for a bit and then made our way back to check on her and found her by herself playing in the corner while everyone else was playing at the table. Hmm...don't like that.

So that Thursday had Mike take her so he could assess the situation. Same thing. A less than welcoming teacher who pretty much blocked Mike from going in. Good thing he's there for his girl and pretty much pushed her out of the way. It was that morning when he came home that we made the decision to pull her out. We started not to send her and her pukies and the bathroom trips stopped! Although it was a hard decision, this is our church, we wanted to make it for Lily. She wasn't our Lily when she walked into that school.

In the beginning of December I had to make my first "move" as a mom. I went in to talk to the Director to tell her that we were officially withdrawing Lily from their school. I completely went in not wanting to point fingers, place blame but come on...their school made my girl sick and not herself so when she kept pushing me to talk...I DID, nicely of course. And, I felt better.

We continued to tour two other preschools and found a VAST difference! Luckily the one that our friends the Bonfiglio kids go to, plus a lot of other kids from the mom's club, had an opening in their M/W class. We made the decision that we would enroll Lily to start in January.

We also didn't make this decision lightly since we didn't want to put too much onto Lily all at once. But, thankfully we met the teacher, Mrs. Red Bow, and her assistant, Mrs. Baska, and fell in love with them. We were at the school once a week in December and were invited to their school Christmas sing-a-long!

And, today was the day! Her first day of Big Girl School!

Look at that smile :)! This is before we left this morning and she couldn't be more excited! They had library first thing and she got to pick out a book to bring home!! What's better than that?!? Mike, of course, took the day off so he could be there for drop-off and pick-up :). Drop-off went extremely well and we left her playing on the floor with dinosaurs in their playground.

Daddy, Emma and I missed Lily a lot and were there early to pick her up. So lucky that we were since they made pine cone bird feeders to hang on their After Christmas Tree (a book they read in class). So out we went and it was wonderful. Lily was talking up a storm, smiling and so excited. She kept telling us they painted her hand and it tickled, went to library, made bird feeders...a mile a minute Lily. :)

On our way home to help celebrate she got a Happy Meal from McDonald's, or what Lily calls it Old MacDonald's :)

Here's to a much better preschool experience and a very happy Lily Girl.

Oh, and she turned 33 months today...3 months until she turns "tree".

~And I apologize for the HUGE one paragaraph looking post, I promise I separate them as I type but when I publish to post they all disappear. If anyone has any suggestions on how to correct, please help :)~