Off to School

Friday was Gabriel's second official day of preschool, first day without mommy staying in the classroom with him. I wasn't sure how the drop off would go. He is often unpredictable - some days when I drop him off at Ethel's he cries and begs me not to go; others, he shuts her door in my face and orders me to go to work. Anyway, he seemed excited about going to school, and even more so about his new Spidey backpack... it's all about Spider-man these days. We got to school and he immediately ran to the classroom door and tried to open it. He peered through the glass and yelled, "Teacher?!?!? Miss Wendy?!?!?" Once in the room, it was as if I didn't even exist. I grabbed him, forced a kiss out of him, and then stepped back while Miss Wendy swept him off to the table and presented him with a chunk of Play-doh. I reluctantly left the room without drawing attention to myself, eyes filled with tears.

Two hours later I reappeared, not that Gabriel took notice. I spoke with Miss Wendy, inquiring as to how Gabriel coped with my disappearance. She said that he started looking for me after and hour of class had passed by, got a teensy-weensy bit upset, and then went back to playing. She may have made up that whole upset thing just to make me feel like I was somewhat missed, who knows... She then proceeded to inform me that Gabriel was, and had been for the past 45 minutes, playing with scissors. Relax, relax, they were safety scissors, but Gabe didn't know the difference. She said that Gabe had told her a hundred times that scissors were very, very dangerous. That being said, he was thrilled to be using them. I found him sitting at the craft table with a few mangled pieces of construction paper sitting in front of him. When I was finally able to get his attention he exclaimed, "I'm cutting, momma, I'm cutting!" Needless to say, it was like pulling teeth getting Gabriel out of the classroom, and even harder getting the scissors out of his hands.

First school craft - keepsake box time.