First Day of Preschool

(the preschool Aiden attends has completely oral and total communication classes - I LOVE this sign when your first walk into the school)

WOW. This has been an emotional couple of weeks:

• Aiden's last week home with me was last week (he is the only one of my children I've stayed home with so it's been hard to let go)
• Aiden's last therapies with all his wonderful ECI therapists (throughout last week)
• Aiden's second hearing birthday was last Friday (3/11)
• Aiden started preschool yesterday (3/14)
• Aiden's birthday is this Thursday (3/17) - our lil' Irish man is turning THREE! (Speaking of which, will be a GREAT day to unwind from all this and enjoy the parade and green beer with my husband! Oh, and have some birthday cake too! : )

With everything going on, I haven't had time to blog, but guess I'll have some time on my hands now that Aiden's in school half the day. My sidekick is going from toddler to little boy way too fast!

The hardest part is he has to get up so early to catch the bus yet doesn't like to go to sleep at night (last night he was playing in his room until TEN!) At first I said no bus, but my husband put it in perspective for me how far we live from the school, how much gas prices are rising, how I have two other kids to get off to school, how cool Aiden will think it is to ride the bus ... okay, so he won and I agreed to let Aiden ride the bus. I rode with him the first day to make sure it was all good though. and he did GREAT. He LOVED it and it truly does make life easier.

As I walked down to get him from his classroom yesterday afternoon (he will only go half days the rest of this year and then start full days next year), I saw they were still in music class, so of course I stood and watched. There was my Aiden, right in the middle of all the kids (they attend specials - art, music, cooking, library - with all the preschool 1 classes) DANCING with a BIG OL' SMILE on his face. My heart melted. His teacher said there were no tears all day, he got right in with all the kids, and had a GREAT first day! He ran right up to me with a big hug when he saw me, but as I gathered his things, he tried to run back into the music room to be with his classmates! Priceless.

When we got home, I was cleaning out his backpack and came across a picture of a Shamrock he colored. At the top the word "Shamrock" was written and on the bottom the teacher wrote his name. I was complementing him on his coloring when he took it from me, pointed to his name at the bottom, "A-i-d-e-n, Aiden!" (he's been doing this for awhile at home), but then he pointed to the picture and exclaimed, "Shamock!" and proceeded to point to the word at the top, "s-h-a-m-r-o-c-k, shamock!" and smiled ear to ear!

This morning when I got Aiden up, I told him it was time to get ready for school and he said to me, "unchbox and bahpah." He was ready. After breakfast, Aiden eagerly waited for the bus and no tears were shed as I walked off after getting him all buckled in.

Yes, I believe he's going to do just fine. And honestly, this time to myself seems like a pretty good deal!