The Zorio Family: Dawson's First Day of Preschool

When I started this blog when I was pregnant with Dawson, I never imagined I would be blogging about his first day of preschool!! Partially because I never wanted to send him and partially because it seemed so far away. As the past four years have flown by our little Dawson has really grown up into a boy, and I finally feel like he (and I) are ready for him to start preschool. John and I had always planned to let him start when he was four, and I really feel good about this decision. Every time we had talked about it before, the thought made me so sad because I like to have him with me, and he seems to enjoy all the things we do together every day. Over these past few months though I really see that he is ready. He's ready to interact with other kids without me there constantly (like playdates), he's ready to learn (he picks things up so quickly, I am always amazed), and he's ready to make friends and listen to his teachers on his own. The excitement with which Dawson has talked about starting preschool over the past couple of months, has also been encouraging because I know that he really is looking forward to it.
He will be going to preschool two days a week, Monday and Wednesday, from 9-2 at our church. His preschool open house was Friday evening. We went and met his teachers, Ms. Libby and Ms. Nancy who both seem great! He got to see his classroom (which is awesome because it's the same room he's in on Sunday mornings, so he is already comfortable there!). I read and filled out some paper work while Dawson played with the other kids in his class, then he came back over to me and asked why I wasn't leaving (ouch!) :) I explained that Mommies got to stay at Open House to meet the teacher but on Monday and Wednesday school days he would be the only one to stay. He seemed ready for me to leave, silly boy! He had fun at Open House and has talked about school even more than normal over the weekend! He has NEVER said anything bad about it or about not wanting to go, so I am very encouraged and I hope it stays this way. Saturday night he told us he was going to ride the school bus to school instead of having Mommy drive him-where did all this independence come from?! I explained that preschool didn't have school buses, and that Mommy WANTED to take him. His response, "oh."

So this morning we woke up and managed to get out of the house and to his first day of school on time! We took a few pictures along the way. Dawson was so excited and didn't seem nervous or worried at all! When I took him to his classroom he walked right in.
Carter and I couldn't wait until 2pm when it was time to pick Dawson up from school. Dawson had a lot to report about his fun day. He LOVED it all! He asked if he could go back tomorrow, but I told him it's just Mondays and Wednesdays! Looks like he will be excited to go again on Wednesday though!

Dawson's lunch gear! I found the tractor/farm lunchbox on etsy and knew it was perfect for Dawson. We had it monogrammed, and Dawson LOVES it!

I found the water bottle and sandwich container at Target, and Uncle Logan helped cut Dawson's name out of vinyl to decorate these items!

School things!

A closeup of Dawson's first day of school shirt! Thanks to much help from my brother, we made this cute preschool rocks shirt for Dawson to wear on his first day! I LOVE how it turned out, and now have many other shirts on my to do list! :)