Graham's Goes to Preschool!

The school calendar changed this year, and the public school in our county began BEFORE Labor Day!  That is unprecedented in Virginia.  But, with Labor Day falling so "late," school would have gone until pretty much the end of June.  To avoid that, the county applied for a waiver from the state allowing us to start school on August 31st, a week early.  I'm personally a fan of this plan since I prefer to have actually had some summer before the 4th of July comes rolling around!  I had assumed preschool would start earlier too, so it never occurred to me that my mom would be here for Graham's first day of preschool!  I was SO glad she was, though!  :)

Josh, Mimi and I all got to go with Graham for his orientation time on Thursday morning.  It was only for about an hour, but it takes the kids through an abbreviated version of their schedule.

Playdough was first up, and Graham was a BIG fan!

Then, they moved to a different room to play!  Trucks--hooray!

Graham's teacher was slated to be our friend, Mrs. Bone, but she is suddenly relocating with her family :(  Fortunately, her replacement, Mrs. DuBinok, seems to be the perfect fit for this group of preschoolers :)  The picture above is of Mrs. Bone showing the class how to fold their hands and teaching them the prayer before snacktime.  Graham had a great time and seemed excited to spend a whole morning at school the next day!

Well, we had quite a morning...  Graham threw a crazy fit that lasted a couple of hours :(  I'm not even sure what set him off, but let's just say he didn't want to wear the shirt I had picked out (because it was the same one Jackson had worn for his first day of preschool) or take any pictures with the cute sign I made him.  After tantrumming most of the time before we left for school, he cried all the way to school.  The only way I got him out of the car was randomly mentioning this bell that is on the side of the church.  He was excited to see the bell!  We let him ring it a few times.

This is the ACTUAL first day of school with Mommy holding the sign.  

This is the next day (today) when a MUCH cheerier mood was had by Graham!

Ready to go with his shark backpack!

Brothers who go to school!  AH!  Slow down, Time!