Alex and Pre-school

Alex set off on his first day of pre-school today and surprisingly, none of my well founded anxieties materialised. For those who do not know, Alex has previously screamed and cried and appeared terrorised at the very thought of being left with just about anyone. It was only a six months ago that I had to take him to a couple of night classes I was doing due to his anxieties about being left, and a year ago that I had to abondon a whole cooking course because the howling and crying from the creche in the next room was annoying others and stressing me out, to the point where I thought perhaps that tightness and pain in my chest was actually me having a heart attack!
Anyway I built up the whole pre-school thing. It is only a 4 minute walk across the oval to get there. We had been over there many times to play in the school playground. And everytime I would ask Alex, "where is your school" and he would point and say "over there". Last week we went in the building to drop in the enrolement form and meet the teacher. Alex was able to see all the fun and interesting things he could play with; and the mention of meeting other kids seemed to light up his eyes, rather than evoke somekind of expectation fear, as would have been the case in the past.
Excitedly this morning he got out his Wiggles backpack and put in a change of clothes, his dreaded hat, a nappy, his drink and then asked for a snack to be placed in his bag; he couldn't wait. At 9am sharp we walked over to the school and waited a few short minutes before the doors opened, signalling the commencement of a new phase in life. As we waited, a little girl stomped around the corner whining "I don't want to go to pre-school". I gasped, would this less than enthusiastic spectacle throw a stone into the seemingly calm first day of pre-school waters? No, Alex was unflappable, confident and eager to get in there. It was a side of him I had never before seen and it was great. He was ready! And we told him how proud of him we were for beig a brave boy. I will leave Alex to tell you about his first morning at pre-school.