{our first back to school by life in cleveland}

Hi!  I’m Jeanne aka Sourire11 and I blog over at Life in Cleveland. I am super excited to be guest posting here – This is such a fun blog and Meredith is awesome for setting up this series!

So my backstory – I was an architect, knitter, and world
traveler before my life was happily hijacked by my kids – a fashion obsessed 3-year-old
and a 16 month old so chill we call him the dude. 

Me with my family on an Accidental Vacation to Fallingwater.

So in a few weeks my daughter is going to preschool for the first time ever.

On one hand:  YAYAYAYAYA!  She is SO ready.  I am SO excited for her.  This is going to be SO good for her and so much fun and I just can’t wait.

On the other:  HOWDIDSHEGROWUPSOFAST?!?!  And also how is she going to handle this?  And how am I going to handle this?  What if she hates it?  What if the other kids/parents don’t like us?  And are these cleaning wipes the right kind as specified in her list and WHY DO THEY MAKE SO MANY DIFFERENT KINDS OF WIPES?

So, you know, that.

See I have been a stay at home / work from home mom since she was born.  And yes she’s taken a whole slew of “classes”  And we’ve done story time and playgroups and drop-ins and all of the things you do when you’re a SAHM to make sure your kids are socialized and play nice with others.  But she has done all of these things with me.

I know she’s an independent kid and will be fine but…. so many jitters.  So many worries.  So many things I’m freaking out about.  So to prepare I’m doing two things.  First I’m soaking in as much summer and as much unencumbered fun as possible before we start the many years of school ahead of us:

Riding the rocket at the Kiddie Park.

And secondly I’m talking it up with her as much as possible.  Because it seems with toddlers (or should I say preschoolers.  WOW.) that prep-work is half the battle.  She does much better in any given situation if she knows what to expect.  So we have been building up school for while now. 

Pictured:  A book we have checked out from the library so many times we ran out of renewals and I have read to her so many times I can recite it from memory.  I highly recommend this one for preschool prep.

We’ve read books.  And we’ve driven past her preschool building.  And we’ve talked about the games they will play and the songs they will sing.  We’ve talked about how she won’t be allowed to wear sandals but how she can wear her sparkly tennis shoes or even her rain boots (shoes are VERY important to her).  Then she told me this:

“I have to figure out what to wear for my first day.  It’s a really big deal so it might take me awhile to decide.”

Um…. ok.  She’s 3 but I rolled with it as if she was 12 and we went shopping for a special first day of school outfit.  I finally felt like she was ready, excited, and understood what was going on.  

Testing out her first day of school outfit while modelling a shawl that I knit.

 Then she told me this:

“You have to show me how to start the car so that I can drive for school.”

I feel like I may have missed something in my explanations.

So what are you guys doing to prepare for school?  What experiences did you have with the first year of preschool?  Any advice you want to give me as we start this next chapter?

Thanks so much to Meredith for allowing me to guest post.  I have very much been enjoying these School’s {in} Session Guest Posts – thanks so much for allowing me to be a part of it!