yay for preschool!

We need to leave earlier for preschool. We were almost late Tuesday but things went pretty well. Frances wanted me to stay with her but she didn't cry, and once I told her I was going she sat down at the playdough and seemed to be enjoying herself. I stood in the hall watching through the glass in the door. After a few moments a woman came over, smiled at me, and introduced herself as the center director. She shook my hand and asked which child was mine. I started to point out Frances but then suddenly I couldn't say anything, my throat all closed up with crying. I felt so ridiculous. The woman (who I'm sure has seen that plenty before) said, "I know. It seems so aggressive, doesn't it? It feels just as aggressive when they go to college."

Aggressive is the right word. That's how it feels.

But Frances had a great time. When I came to pick her up the teacher said F didn't shed one tear and never once asked for her paci or blanket. In the car on the way home F told me about the playground--the slide and the tunnel. She even said she wants to go back.

That was Tuesday. Today she was anxious about going, said she wanted to play in the yard, wanted to go to the mall, wanted to watch t.v., anything. Once we got there she clung to me a bit again but then she started to make "coffee" at the play kitchen. When I watched through the door from the hall, she was cutting a plastic hamburger with a plastic knife. This time when I came to pick her up she had her paci and blanket. The teacher said she was fine until about 11am when it suddenly seemed to dawn on her that she was missing these things. And she cried. I feel no pain about that, by the way. She was just fine when I got there. The aggression of the situation seems to have limited itself to the first day--the actual transition in my life, going from having a baby to having a toddler who goes to school. We need to note these transitions in our lives. I suppose I did it by crying in the hallway.

BUT what interests me about all this is how much I am enjoying having her go. When there are sitters here I have a little space because they are entertaining her, but she's still here. When I come home with C after dropping her off at preschool, the house is so quiet. I have all this space to think and breathe and make a nursing necklace, like I did today. (I'll try to post a pic of it if I can muster up the energy to take and download one.)

I'm feeling a bit better at this moment. Yet, this seems to be the nature of my illness right now: it comes and goes. This is why I keep getting confused and thinking I'm fine. But this moment, home after preschool with both kids napping, I am fine. It's a nice thing to be.