A day of firsts

It doesn't make any sense, really.

I was all set to have to rip my daughter off of my leg at her first preschool dropoff this morning.  She's a bit of a Mama's girl, and, as I said yesterday, every other time we visited her school there have been tears and partial meltdowns.

She started daycare last March, with mixed results.  Her first week or so was fraught with screaming and tears and general guilt (mine) for going back to work.  And then she was fine for awhile.  And then she had another bad week.  Then the cycle would repeat itself.  In July, of course, she stayed home with me and her brother.  So I kind of figured she'd gotten out of the habit of being away from me, which would make today extra hard.  She's been telling me for weeks that she didn't want to go to school, that she wanted to stay home with me.

I could tell she was nervous last night.  She screamed extra hard at bedtime and fought with me on everything.  I lay down with her, as usual, for about five minutes, but she still was super pissed at me for leaving her bedroom.  (This is normal - but it was the level of her pissed-off-ness that wasn't).

She also woke up around 2:30 in the morning, crying.  I lay down with her again, but thankfully (for all of us) it didn't take long for her to go back to sleep.  And then at 5:30 when I got up I heard her up again.  I didn't encourage her to come downstairs so she went back to sleep.

This morning we dropped Sebastian off first - my Big First Grader who walks into almost any new situation with confidence, even though he admits that he's "a little shy."  The kid amazes me.  Other than the few months of screaming at his new daycare when he was 18 months old we've never had any issues about dropoffs.  He just goes with it, you know?  It's an amazing quality, that ability to not be painfully shy in new situations.  I hope he never loses it.  He's told me over and over again how excited he was to go to school and how much fun it's going to be.

When it was time to drop Adele off we walked to her classroom and she casually held my hand, but not too tight.  And we talked about the playground and all the toys and all the writing and learning she would be doing.  And then we went into her classroom, she hung up her backpack, found a Frozen puzzle and started working it.

Okay then.

I gave her a hug, told her I was leaving and to have a good day.  Then I braced myself for the screaming and clinging that was sure to follow.  It ... didn't.

She told me bye.

I walked out the door.

And that was it.

Until, of course, one of the teachers chased me down all the way to the parking lot because I forgot to sign Adele in.  But even then, when I expected her to cry when she saw me again, she was absolutely fine.  Great even.  She was sitting with another little girl working the puzzle.  When I said goodbye to her, she waved at me and said "Bye mom."  She wasn't overly excited to be there, but she was okay with it.

I didn't cry when I left, though I wanted to.  I don't know what to think about all this.  It made her seem so grown up all of the sudden, so much a little kid.  I don't know if this new-found independence will last, or if it was a one-time thing.  But this is it, you know?  The baby is in school, starting her journey.  Her brother is already well on his own way.

I'm not going to survive them moving out of the house, am I?