Me, not so much! I just dropped Boo off to her first day of preschool. She has been so excited about it. I prepared her for the separation, as did a friend of mine, by talking about it ahead of time. It's at a local community center next to a park I used to go to as a very young child (slightly triggering, surprisingly, as I don't remember anything except being on a mound of grass on the other side of the park).

Anyway, all the kids parents were waiting in the reception area and Boo and I joined them. A little boy was roaring at me, so I engaged him about whether he was a dinosaur or a tiger or lion or bear, etc. He said he was a tiger and Boo decided she was one too and they crawled around the reception area, playing tigers and roaring at me. Then, dinosaurs, airplanes, bears, jumping up and down. Boo was very polite and said excuse me when they bumped into one another, though she did test me a little trying to run off toward the entrance.

She was so excited to get in the room that when the teacher was asking names while we lined up, she was telling her name with two kids still in front of her. When it was her turn, she gave her name and didn't want to wait and pulled me into the room. She did (voluntarily) grab my hand when walking up to the room, but let go as soon as she was in. I showed her around a little, where the books were, where the cubbies were.

She saw her new friend painting and (she loves painting), got very attached to that activity. I did a trial separation, saying I was going to look around the room. She was fine with that. I came back and watched her paint, took a couple of pictures, and she said, "OK, Mommy, you can go byebye now." I gave hugs and kisses and pats and high fives and tore her away from painting for a bit to make sure she knew who the teacher was and the teacher knew who she was. She told me to go about three times before I actually did. I was going to stay in reception in case she needed mom, but it went so smoothly (literally, "OK, bye Mama!" when I said I was leaving and coming back in a couple of hours) that I decided to go home.

I found myself dissociating to cope with the anxiety of separating from her, LOL. She is the youngest in her class (I think, as they waived the age requirement for her) of threes and fours, but there are only a few students bigger than her. So, while she is with a bunch of older kids (she's used to being the oldest and in charge), she seems like she's physically, cognitively and socially on the same level with the rest of them. I was surprised at how outgoing she was, ready to engage with her new little friend. My only worry is what happens when they try to get her to stop painting, LOL. She still struggles a lot transitioning from activities she likes.

Anyway, I know a lot of you were thinking of me regarding this big "first," so I wanted to let you know how it all went. If anything changes when H and I pick her up (he ended up working from home unexpectedly, so he wants to come with), I'll update. Thanks for reading!