My Little Sam in Preschool! ...wait WHAT?

I know for many of you the last time we saw each other my Sam was a tiny baby! But my crazy 3 1/2 year old boy is in preschool now. Yeah, it is totally weird! He has taken his own sweet time to really start talking much, so we have gotten him into preschool at the same Elementary school Emily goes to! :D We hope it will help get him up to where he needs to be before he needs to start kindergarten in a couple years. He does have some separation anxiety problems, most of the time I can't leave him in Nursery at church without him freaking out! So I was SOOOO worried that he would freak out to ride on the bus to school alone! Since it is difficult to communicate with him about some things, I was afraid his ride on the bus away from the Mama would put him over the edge!

Shows what I know!

On his first day he was excited to see "Sammy's Bus-ee" as he calls it. I had been telling him for weeks that he would get to go to school on his OWN bus, and since he LOOOOOOVES all things with wheels I hoped that it would get him excited!

Here he is mounting the steps into the bus on his first day! I found him his own medium sized backpack or his "Packy" with race cars all over it (Thank you to JoAnn's Crafts $5 Clearance...I totally got 2 for when he loses one or it is ruined)! It is surprisingly difficult to find a backpack that will fit a normal folder/8.5x11 paper and yet be small enough for a 3yr old to wear!

He got all strapped into the bus and then when I said goodbye, and he realized that Mom was NOT coming with him he worriedly cried "MOM!!!" oh, man that was hard! He started to cry, but by the time the bus driver was back in her seat and pulling away he wasn't crying...not exactly happy...but not freaking out.

Um, yeah, I totally cried then! :D

It's funny, I haven't had a problem with my older kids going to school...I remember being a bit freaked out when Amanda first started school, but then again I have never had one as young as 3yrs who doesn't talk/communicate too well get on the bus and go away without me!!!!!!! :D I ended up having to go get him from school that first day because they didn't give the teacher his info and so she didn't know what bus he rode...*sigh* But he was happy as can be when I picked him up at at school! His teacher said he was very well behaved that first day, he got right off the bus no problem, took her hand, went right to class and was good as gold! :D

Sam SOOOO excited to go outside and wait for his bus to come on day 2, sporting his new Batman Tshirt! :D

Here he is excited to see the bus come around the corner.

The second day we put him on the bus, he waved and said "Bye Mama!!!" and was OFF! No drama at ALL!!! Every day since then he has been excited to ride on his bus, he even does this funny little dance thing when the bus rounds the corner to our house! SO CUTE! I think it has also helped that he is at the same school that Amanda went to and Emily goes to now, so he has been there dozens of times before. (They have two Elementary schools right next door to each other, one houses grades K-2, and the other has grades 3-5. There was originally only one plus the empty lot next door...but when there was so much growth so quickly in this area they just decided to build another school on the land they owned next door!)

Here is my purse-ful o' gadgets and phones so I can buzz the bus in at the gate, or if they call from the school, or if Sam misses the bus, or whatever...geez, overprepared much?

Can you believe how big he is getting! I love him in his new big boy school clothes! :D

THIS is one sweet little boy! :D I swear there is NOTHING better than unsolicited kisses!