Sydney starts nursery school

Today was Sydney's first day at the Ledyard Nursery School. Her teachers had told parents of a new student joining their class and as we entered the school we were welcomed by the parents. Her teachers, Ms. Cometa and Ms. Fountaine were waiting for everyone at the classroom door to say the children would be going to the playground first. Sydney was ready to head into the classroom to the housekeeping center she played at when we met her teachers a couple weeks ago. But Ms. Fountaine gently said to Sydney they would be going outside. So she looked around, found the outside door and started to head toward it. A very good sign and a sigh of relief for me. I was happy that she was happy. I gave her the routine "hug, kiss, high-five" goodbye and left the school. I stayed in the next building at the library in case I got a call but after a half hour of quiet I went home to take care of a few things. When I got back a few parents were waiting outside the classroom door. The routine is that the parents wait and Ms. Fountaine dismisses the kids one by one. The kids were singing the Itsy Bitsy Spider and I could hear Sydney's voice. Ms. Cometa said the kids made snow shakers with Kix cereal and listened to "Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear?" She said that Sydney started to ask for me toward the end but no more than that. When Ms. Fountaine dismissed the first child Sydney tried to go with her and started to cry because she wanted to go too. She waited with Ms. Cometa at the door and I came to greet her. She was pretty upset by then so I took her to the bathroom to wipe her eyes and then we went to her cubby where I gave her her snow shaker. She smiled and calmed down enough to give her teachers high-fives. So we started and ended on a good note! A very good first day! On the way home in the car I asked Sydney a couple questions about school and she stared at me looking a little stressed so I quickly changed the topic to home, Hazel and lunchtime. Wednesday will be tougher because she knows what it's all about now, but she will get used to it and I know she will enjoy it.
Andrew and I had been thinking back and forth about when and where Sydney would start school. We had planned on putting her in preschool at age three. Up until now she had two playdates a week which was enough for her age. But my friend Laura told me about her son attending the nursery and that it had a ratio of two teachers to six toddlers. The class meets two days a week from 9:15-11:15. I thought this would be a good way to help Sydney transition to preschool where there would be two teachers and 20 kids. Laura's son is in the T-TH class which unfortunately was full so I enrolled her in the M-W class. That falls on the same day as our playdates but we will start meeting up on Fridays. We don't want to break up our great toddler trio!