Daxton's First Day of Preschool

Sorry I am so slow posting this...my grandpa has been in the hospital for the last three weeks or so. He went in for an operation and was supposed to be out in 5-7 days, but he ran into a complication, and then another one, and then another one. Things just got worse and worse and very long story short, this weekend the decision was made at Grandpa's request to take him off of oxygen and remove his feeding tube. I got to take the kids in to say goodbye to him on Friday night before they took him off of the oxygen and everything, and although it was hard, it was a good experience. He was pretty out of it, but he smiled at all of us and said "Hi!" to Cora. He slept all day yesterday, but would still respond by moving or mumbling a little if I held his hand or spoke to him. Today when I went to visit him after church he was pretty unresponsive and just sleeping heavily. It shouldn't be too long now, I hope for his sake. He is ready to go, even if the rest of us aren't ready for him to leave.

Anyway....back to the fun stuff.

Can I tell you how proud I am of this little man?

He had his first day of preschool on Tuesday. Dax being Dax, I wasn't quite sure what was going to happen. I took him to see the preschool a few days before it started, and there are soooo many fun toys there! I was worried that he wouldn't want to stop playing with them long enough to sit down and listen to anything the teacher said. I was worried that since he didn't know his teacher very well yet that he might be too afraid to tell her that he had to use the potty until it was too late. I was worried that he might tackle a kid or two or three. But (at least for the first week), Dax has been a preschool angel! Yay! His teacher said he was one of the best listeners in the class and he told me he went potty twice on Thursday. (Really? twice in two hours? I guess I should cut down on the juice at breakfast).

I got him his very first backpack a couple of weeks ago and he has been wearing it EVERYWHERE. He could not wait until that first day of preschool and asked about it all the time. Here he is, striking a supermodel pose to show you his backpack on his first official day (I just want squeeeeze him, he is so cute).

When I dropped Dax off on his first day he wasn't anxious or nervous at all. He was just excited to go to preschool and play with the dinosaurs and be a big boy. It probably helped that he watched Arden go to preschool for two years and saw her coming home with little treats and art projects and all sorts of fun stuff. The only problem he had that first morning is that he didn't really want to hang his backpack up on the little hangers outside the classroom. He wanted to just wear it the whole time. Preschool = backpack. Why should he take the backpack off when he was FINALLY actually at preschool?? After he saw a couple of the other kids hang theirs up, he was a little more willing. Here is my boy with his proud mommy, right before I drove him to school:

I was a little worried that Cora would feel bad that she was now the only one stuck at home with boring old me. Luckily on that first day, my sister Val came over and Cora was actually pretty happy to have 100% of Val's attention to herself, for probably the first time EVER. On Thursday I decided I would take advantage of this only-one-kid thing and do some grocery shopping. Cora, as usual, wanted to use a race car cart at the local supermarket. We usually use those race car carts (which are humongous and impossible to steer) since there are two steering wheels and two seats, one for Dax and one for Cora.

Cora got into the cart, and then looked at the empty seat next to her and said, "Where's Daxton?" I reminded her that we had just dropped him off at preschool. "Oh." she said, looking a little sad. She asked about him a couple more times while we were shopping. I think she missed him. It just isn't as fun to make car noises and turn your steering wheel back and forth if Dax isn't there to make noises with you and fight with you over whose steering wheel is whose. They have never really been away from each other for long, so it made me a little bit sad that they have to grow up and spend some time apart.

Here is Cora, giving her big brother a good-luck-at-preschool hug:

And here is my baby boy, opening the door to a big new world:

Soon, he will be the one in kindergarten.

But hopefully not too soon.