Shad officially started preschool the day after we got back from two weeks of vacation. It was a bit of a crazy morning with Dan off to start the semester again and a new job as well as getting Shad ready. Fortunately, Shad was extremely excited and has no qualms about new situations really. He was especially excited that even though he only goes to afternoon kindergarten he still gets to eat lunch there. I was less than thrilled when he dressed himself in his "exercises" shorts and a sports jersey for the first day of school. It took a lot of convincing and reminding him that Dad and his cousins wear their "nice shorts" to school. When he finally decided to change he picked out the collared shirt himself, too cute! Frankly, I wouldn't really care what he wore to school except for the fact that he lives in his exercise clothes. Occasionally I would like to see him actually dressed and not looking like he was spending the day in his pajamas. I figured the easiest way to accomplish this: wear nice clothes to school and wear whatever he wants the rest of the time except Sunday. We really weren't exactly sure what schedule we were going to do and I debated and debated about doing fewer days and doing full day or more days and only half. I was really leaning towards the full days since I have to park and physically walk him to the classroom inside the elementary school each day. This sounded much less appealing come snow with a one year old every day. In addition, kindergarten is full day so I thought it might be good to get use to it. However, the first three days he came home and slept nearly three hours each day. Several of them he was asleep before we even got home. He is a lot like me in that he needs a lot of sleep and with how hard he plays I wasn't surprised he was so wiped out. It easily made the decision for me that full day would be too much. Not only would we potentially have to wake him up to get there he wouldn't make it through the day without a nap I don't think. Also, the school has early out on Friday so the older kids that need after care are in the preschool too so we decided not to bother with Friday. It also makes it easier to take long weekends if we want. It works well for us because it gives Bailey a chance to sleep longer in the morning as well. Unfortunately, it also means her nap often falls in the time shortly before we need to pick Shad up. She handles being woken up pretty well and I don't think we could really ask for it to go better. Shad cried about coming home the first week. He loves it and is having a great time. I don't think he has actually realized that due to the fact it is spanish immersion one teacher speaks spanish all day, but I still think it will be good for him. It is a bilingual school, however it is suppose to be the best preschool in town according to Dan and his colleagues so that is how we ended up there. I see the bilingual thing as an added bonus I suppose. Since we aren't sure if we will be in Flag for kindergarten I haven't worried too much about whether or not we will keep him at that school or not.
Having only one kid for three hours four days a week has been really nice. I have been able to spend a lot more time on my calling and some other personal projects that have really been teaching me a lot and strengthening my testimony. It has been good to really try to focus on becoming closer to my Savior and work through some things I have had going on. Lastly, I have also been trying to spend some of that time really focusing on Bailey and interacting with her. This last week at the doctor we discussed that she still isn't saying any words despite being fifteen months. We are in the process of deciding whether or not to do a speech assessment (Shad spoke really late also) but I am hopeful that at least a little more one on one time really focused on trying to help her learn will certainly benefit. I have made a strict rule though that preschool time even if Bailey is asleep is not nap time. It has actually been pretty tough but I can already tell that it will have substantial benefits.
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| Think he was excited? |
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| A little more natural smile. |
