First Day of School

My oldest baby started Asilo today (Italian preschool). I have almost made it to nap time without any major break downs :). This is something I have stressed over for a couple months now, and especially the last week. Are we doing the right thing sending her off to a new environment where she doesn't know anyone and doesn't speak the language? I am terrified, and in all her innocence, she doesn't know to be anything but excited. Which makes me even more terrified! What if she is lonely? What if she can't communicate what she needs? What if ::gasp:: I don't have control of a situation that my kid is in? And then of course there is the aspect of it that my little buddy is no longer going to be around 24 hours every day to be with me and keep me company. Last night as I was crying to my husband about losing my little buddy, it occured to me that our youngest is only three years away from this, and that made me cry even harder..."In three years Payton is going to go off to school, too, and then I'll be ALL ALONE". My loving, patient husband held me and said, "You'll always have me..." He is so good to me.

So off to school we went today. Cooper was so extremely excited. The first three days one of us goes with her, and we stay for two hours. Then, slowly, they will work into Monday through Friday, 9-4:30 (although I am not sure my little one will be going quite that long, as I don't work like most Italians do). Our plan is to do half days, and maybe only three days a week, we'll see. But today was just hang out, meet the teachers, explore the room, and fill out paperwork (which was tedious as I sat with my dictionary and looked up each word). Cooper did really well, running right in to play, and hugging her teacher when I introduced them. We were a little out of the loop as far as what to bring. They had told me to bring a towel, so I showed up with a big, American sized beach towel. All the Italians had matching hand towel sized towels, that were each embroidered with their child's name. And matching, embroidered bibs for lunch time. I was the only one taking pictures, and Cooper's stuff was labeled Stoda, as I had apparently written her name backwards when I was registering her, so they thought her name was Stoda Cooper (neither are names they've ever heard, so they had no idea). That took me about 10 minutes by itself to get sorted out :). But all in all it went really well, Cooper is excited to take Daddy back tomorrow, and I can't wait for him to get to spend the time with her, and for me to get to spend some good time with my boy. And I think I'm doing pretty good for the first day of my kids growing up and starting their own lives!