Preschool

Today was the first day of preschool for both Jameson and Stellan. I'll be honest, I was totally looking forward to it and had no reservations. James asked me this morning if I thought I was going to be emotional. I didn't expect to be.
We got up at the usual time and got ready. I thought school started at 9:30 so I knew we would be able to take it easy and not worry about rushing. James was going in late so he could come for their fist drop off too.
The boys looked so cute in their new shoes. They looked like such big boys who were ready to learn. (Well, play, it's only preschool after all.)
We got them loaded in the van and then we headed out to Sandhills Preschool. I knew that it would take approximately 10 minutes to get there so we had plenty of time since we were leaving at 9:10.
When we got to the school I noticed that the parking lot was a bit sparse. I thought it a bit strange, afterall, we weren't that early, only 10 minutes.
We walked the kids into the school and noticed that the classrooms were already full of students. I thought, "Wow, these kids sure got here early". Uh yeah, that would be more like they got there on time, 9:00 when school actually starts. I have no idea where I came up with this whole 9:30 start time. Sheesh. I made my kids late on their first day. We'll now be labeled as the late family. This is so not like me, I was not impressed with myself.
Good thing we figured this out though or else I would have had a worse reputation for picking my kids up late. I didn't plan on showing up until 12:00. On the real schedule (not the made up one in my mind) class is done at 11:30. I'm so glad we got that cleared up. I would have felt like quite the fool if they would have to call me on the first day of school and remind me to pick up my kid. Not only would we be labeled the late family, we would also have CPS wondering why this mother "forgot" to pick up her kids. Sheesh.

I was so proud of the boys, they went into their classrooms without any problems. Well, truthfully Stellan decided to go into Jameson's class first but then he had no problems going across the hall to his own room. They both had an idea of what toys they wanted to play with and went right to those stations. Not even a backward glance to say "goodbye" to the mother who has been with them non-stop for the past year. What gratitude! Hey, I was proud, they did so well! I was especially proud of Stellan; he's known to cry in situations like these.

Now....2 hours to myself. What to do what to do??? I decided to check out the local area and see if there was a decent grocery store. I drove many miles north with no luck. Darn it, that would have been a great solution. There is a Stop N Shop that's close by but I don't that overpriced stinky store. I ended up in an Indian market. I had no idea what the majority of the stuff was in this market but there were nice fruits and vegetables for good prices so I did end up buying some things.

I headed home at that point, stopping at Stop N Shop for some OJ (I will actually go in if it's an emergency. It would be an emergency if Stellan didn't have his OJ!). I also stopped at a roadside stand for some tomatoes (so yummy!) and more peaches (want to make another peach cobbler and peach pie).

I had an hour in a quiet house. Wow, the fridge sure sounds loud when there are no other noises in the house. I made an Orchard Fresh couscous; couscous cooked in OJ then mixed with diced pear, plum and strawberries with an OJ/cinnaomon/ginger reduction on top. I was really looking forward to this. I had all the ingredients but only one problem, I didn't have enough couscous. I was supposed to have a cup and might have had a measly 1/3 of a cup. I made some quick modifications to the recipe but it still didn't turn out quite as expected. I liked it but think it could be better if I tried again.

Well, my hour was up so I headed back to school. I picked up the boys, on time, with no problems. They were excited to see me but it was obvious that they had a good morning. Stellan didn't have much to say but Jameson did say that there was a boy, Logan, who had a birthday and they sang the days of the week song. They both said that they had a great time and are looking forward to going back on Thursday. I hope to have them on time on Thursday. :)