Claire's First Day of Preschool

Before I jump into the preschool thing, I have to mention one of the sweetest moments we have experienced as parents so far. Every night, I check on Claire before I go to bed. Last night, she was sleeping in a really cute position, so I called Josh to come look. She stirred a little, then looked up at me in her sleepy haze and said, "Love you, Mom" in the sweetest little sleepy voice I've ever heard. Then she saw Josh standing next to me, looked at him, and said, "Love you, Dad." It was so precious that even my husband's eyes watered a little! She was so out of it that she was back asleep within 5 seconds, but it felt like she just wanted to make sure we knew she loved us. So sweet!

Okay, now on to preschool...

Claire started preschool today! She's been asking to go ever since we took our first preschool tour over the summer, so she was thrilled when we told her today was the big day. She carried her own little backpack and was so excited to be at school that she was pulling me toward her classroom as fast her little legs could carry her. There were no tears. In fact, I could barely even get her attention to say good-bye.

We decided to put her in preschool for a several reasons. First, we're hoping to add to the family sometime in the next year and I wanted to make sure I had reliable care for Claire when I have doctor's appointments. Secondly, Claire just seemed ready. She's such an active and social little girl, so I had no doubt that she would LOVE preschool (and she does). Third, I'll admit that I am a little excited about going to get my oil changed  (or grocery shopping, or mopping the floors) without wrangling a toddler. And I think Claire will be happy to miss those times as well. Now she'll spend two mornings a week at preschool while I do all my boring grown-up stuff. Everybody wins!

Claire Changed Her Own Diaper

I've been pleasantly surprised at how easily Claire transitioned to a big girl bed. In the last two days, she's had no problem going to sleep at night or during nap time. She would lay down and stay in bed the whole time. That changed today.

When I put her down for her nap, I heard her get up almost immediately. I went into her room, put her back to bed, and told her it was nap time and she should lay down in her bed and rest. It was quiet after that, so I went to take a shower. When I got out, everything was still quiet. Crisis averted, I thought. 

Then, I heard her knocking on her door from inside her room. She wasn't fussing or calling out, so I decided to just listen on the monitor for a few minutes. I heard some rustling and moving around. She was definitely awake and getting into things. It hadn't been that long since I put her down, so I knew she hadn't had time to take a nap and wake up already. I had two choices. I could go in and try to get her back in bed (which I thought would be difficult since she had been in her room for more than a few minutes - she would probably just insist that nap time was over.) My other option was to wait it out a few more minutes. She might play a little, but maybe she would start to feel tired and decide to go to sleep. I waited, and after a little more commotion, she was quiet. Nap time success!

When she woke up a while later, I walked into her room to discover what I had been hearing over the monitor. Claire had changed her own diaper. She had climbed onto her changing table, removed the dirty diaper (spilling some of it's contents onto the changing table), put it in the trash, used some wet wipes to clean herself up, and attempted to throw those in the trash (but missed, so they were on the floor). Then, she apparently got a clean diaper out of the diaper stacker, which looked disheveled from her rummaging through it, and put it on. For the finishing touch, she decided to change clothes. So she took off the clothes she had on and shoved them into one of her dresser drawers. She then searched through all the other drawers in her dresser until she found an outfit she wanted to wear and put it on. So, I walked in to find a very messy room, but a toddler with a clean diaper and a new outfit, grinning and ready to play. I took a mental picture of her proud, smiling face. (I had to clean up the poop, so there wasn't time to grab a real camera). That's my kid!