Today was William's first day of preschool!



















Sniff. He's growing up so fast. Next thing I know, he'll be asking to borrow the car keys.

But seriously, I don't know which one of us was more excited. Or ready.



















"Let's get in the car, Mommy."



















It was so weird getting William ready for school this morning. I was so accustomed to making sure I packed a backpack full of all his stuff, plus his enormous puffy nap mat, and lugging it all with me. This year, he has a tote bag that he carries all by himself. An empty tote bag. And that's it. No extra outfit (or two); the teachers keep an extra set of clothes at school. No blankey. No extra Natty. No diapers. "No PullUps!" William cheered. Just a tote bag, waiting to be filled with art projects, newsletters from the school, and notes from the teachers.

I dropped him off in his brand new classroom at 9 a.m. The school was a zoo. They won't start using the carpool line for drop-offs and pick-ups for another week, so everyone was straggling into the building. We had to stop and say hello to people along the way, too. We arrived in the classroom, hung up his totebag, and he scampered off to play with the trucks on the floor with several other boys--and he didn't look back.

And that was it. It was sort of anticlimactic, actually. I did try to snap a few pictures (that didn't turn out very well) but decided to go ahead and leave when I saw him get upset over something (a disagreement over a truck, I believe). Um, yeah, your teachers have reassured me that they know exactly how to handle this sort of thing, been doing it for years. See ya, kid.

Because it was the first day--I feel that I should capitalize those words and make them into First Day--they asked the parents of the three-year-olds to arrive at 11:45 a.m. for pick-up. Another change from the past: the three-year-olds have music class as their last activity of the morning, so the parents pick them up in the music room, not their classroom. Last year, we picked the kids up from their classroom, where, more often than not, half of them were still quietly and adorably snoozing inside their enormous puffy nap mats. Occasionally, William was one of those kids, but sometimes, he would be running around the room like a champion sprinter.

The door opened, and teachers been escorting children out into the hall and depositing them in the arms of their moms. (Yes, it was all moms. However, I do have to give a shoutout to the husbands of two of my friends, who have kids in William's class. They came to school this morning for drop-off.) William was about the fifth or sixth child to emerge. His teacher pointed him in my direction and said to me, "He had a good day! He played with the trucks and in the sand." William beamed a huge William smile. Then he threw his arms around me and nearly pulled me over in the hallway. As we walked to the car, he told me that he ate graham crackers for snack and that they sang songs in music class. Not a bad report from a three-year-old.

So I guess it went pretty well!