I'm sure many of you might be thinking Farrah's too young for preschool. She won't even be 3 until December and that still leaves her with 3 years of schooling before Kindergarten because she's a December baby. I would have agreed with you up until about a month ago when a series of events made it clear we made the right choice.
It started when I picked Farrah up from her weekly daycare visit. Her daycare provider said her daughter would be starting preschool and asked if we could switch Farrah's day that she attends daycare. I went home and thought about possibly switching her day and our schedule that we have worked out, and then switching it again when preschool rolled around and that combined with a new baby made me worried it would be too much change for Farrah and I didn't want her associating the new baby with her being "shipped off" to school. So with that, I told my husband what my thoughts were and asked him if we could start looking into preschool.
The next couple of weeks, it was like God was trying to show me that this was the right direction for us. Farrah really started expanding intellectually with new vocabulary and started saying things that indicated she needed more stimulation than I was able to give her at home. I know every parent says this, but she really is very intelligent. I'm shocked sometimes at how much she's learned at such a young age, how much she comprehends, and the empathy that such a little person can have. Maybe that's why she can also be so challenging. She's too smart for her own good! :)
I already knew exactly where I wanted Farrah to go to preschool. You see in the MOMs club that I'm in, there's a mom that owns her own preschool and she's given a presentation on kindergarten readiness and hosted a kid's fair at her preschool. She is what sold me on her school before I even stepped foot in the school. It's not exactly in our backyard. It's about a 15-20 min drive. And it's not exactly the cheapest, although honestly I didn't do much shopping around because I wanted Farrah to go there so bad, but all I know is after we factor in what we were paying for once a week daycare, it's going to be an extra $200/month so guess who gets to come up with that.... me! :) Unfortunately my husband doesn't have the ability to give himself a raise anytime he needs it and I do, so looks like I'll be holding an extra party per month to cover it. Which I am more than happy to do!
So anyways, back to the owner of the daycare. She is amazing... moral of the story. When she talks about children and education, passion just exudes from her and you can tell she genuinely loves what she does. I love it when I see this. I wish more people were like this. But I guess unfortunately not everyone loves what they do. I wanted my child at a place where the teachers were actually enthusiastic about being there, and not burnt out, watching the clock teachers that make it more of a glorified daycare. She explained the process of kindergarten and what schools are looking for children to be doing before they enter, ways we can work with them at home and ways preschool can help. I appreciated she wasn't a preschool pusher and she said some kids won't need much preschool but at least one year would be great so they're more prepared for kindergarten. Some kids, she said, might need a lot of preschool because of their energy, abilities, etc. And for a while I thought Farrah was in the first group and then it was like over night she became this much older kid. I don't know how to explain it.
So we scheduled a tour with the preschool for myself, my husband and Farrah to go check it out. It's not one of those mega preschool centers with tons of kids but it was just right for us. She was there to give us a tour so I was glad my husband was able to meet her and hear for himself about this awesome lady I had told him about. That and he has a masters in Education so I wanted his honest feedback being that I can make quick decisions once I have my mind made up about something and he reigns me back in a bit. So after the tour we left and in the car Farrah kept asking to go back to preschool. Sigh of relief from her parents. And my husband said he could see why I loved her so much and he is willing to pay a little extra to make sure Farrah gets a great education and that he felt that would be the best place for Farrah. After a little number crunching to make sure we could really do it, he was the one to tell me to hurry up and call her because there was only one more spot for the MWF mornings which is what we wanted so I did and Farrah was quickly enrolled in preschool. She had her first day Monday, today is her 2nd day. I'll fill you in on that later since this post is getting a bit lengthy but I'll leave you with the picture I took in the car 60 seconds after picking her up from preschool her first day. I would say it was a success!
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