Brielle's First Day of "School!"

It's been a crazy few days around here! Thankfully, our power came back this afternoon after 50 hours of being out! We want to update you on what took place yesterday, Monday. We made the difficult decision to take Brielle out of the care of the Hollands' and place her into a daycare/preschool called The Magical Years in Halifax. We did this for two main reasons: 1) we decided that it would be better for Brielle to go to daycare with some of the kids that she will go to elementary school with. I know it seems like that is far down the road, but we thought to ourselves, do we pull her out at 2 or at 5? 2) The drive to West Bridgewater for Al in the morning and me in the afternoon was getting to be too much four days a week. I wouldn't get home until close to 5 o'clock and I would leave school as soon as I was able to! We didn't want Brielle to leave her friends at the Hollands and LOVED the care she received there. It was a tough choice!

So, with weighing the pro's and con's, I went to work researching daycares and really liked The Magical Years. We went to visit it and decided to enroll Brielle! Her first day of school was going to be the same day as Ma-ma's first day of school, but with the hurricane, Brielle went to school but Ma-ma did not!
We talked about her going to a "new school" and making new friends. She didn't totally understand, but she would say "Yeah!" when we talked about it. The cutest thing was when we would drive by The Magical Years. She would point to it and say "my school, Ma-ma!" or "Da-da, My school!"
She was super excited to have a "pack-pack" and loved that she had a lunch box to carry! We were more nervous than she was, of course! It was actually a good thing that I didn't have school because I didn't have to rush dropping her off. She was very shy when we walked in, but the teachers were awesome at getting her to see what toys they had. She stayed pretty close to me and at one point had one of her hands on my leg for comfort! I stayed about 20 minutes talking with the teachers and playing. I snuck out when Brielle wasn't looking and didn't stop thinking about her all day!!
When I walked into the daycare about 4 o'clock I saw the director first. She told me how well Brielle did and how sweet she is. Then I saw Brielle and another little girl trying to peeking through the door window. It was the cutest thing! I opened the door and Brielle screamed "My Ma-ma!" The teachers, Miss Ashly and Miss Mary, immediately told me how great of a day she had, how perfect she was, how well she did following directions, and how they wished they had ten of her! It made me feel sooooo good! I had hoped her transition would go smoothly, but where Brielle can be very shy, I wasn't expecting it to go that well! I was just so proud of her! The above picture is what she did during the day. At the bottom it says: "Brielle is such a pleasure to have in school!!" And "Brielle had a wonderful first day-we are very happy to have her!!" Talk about a good feeling as a Mommy!! The teachers are wonderful and we are so pleased that this transition is a smooth one so far! Thanks for checking in with us!

Brielle made a "shapely snake" on her first day!