Ready, Set, Preschool!

First Day of Preschool Photo Shoot:
No anxiety here...

That's right...work it girl...

Poor Foo. At this point she still thinks she is going. As you can see she has packed her purse and her backpack.

Looking very mature...

She has to wear her nametag for the first couple of days. They will probably go back and add an "S" after her name to differentiate her from THE OTHER SOPHIA IN HER CLASS. What was I thinking? When your baby name is in the top 5 this is the moment you fear, the risk you take. Did I really think that I was the only one who saw that 2006 movie "The Holiday" and adored Jude Law's daughters named Sophia and Olivia? Sophia go for it: Be Alecia to your heart's content. And I'll just count on there being no other Foo's by the time she gets to preschool...

Here's what I decided about first children. It's really not about their "first" being more intense. It's about our firsts as parents. Sophia loved her first day - she loved Other Sophia and Other Braden and doing stamps and playing on the playground. But she also plays into the fact that we seem to make a big deal of this. Why? Because its a bigger First for us than for her. On Thursday she played in a class. On Thursday we became tuition-paying, carpool-driving, soup label collecting, extra fee paying, meeting-missing parents.

And just like at her first pediatrician appointment when they called her name, not mine, I found myself asking: Is this allowed? Especially because I am realizing who we are doesn't change as much as our seasons in life do... Thus I found myself in the two hour orientation meeting following a very familiar routine: sit in the back with a friend, listen, miss something, identify responsible listener, ask responsible listener what I missed, try and keep up with corresponding paperwork, give up and have a snack, have anxiety over a procedure that I don't quite understand, realize I have already forgotten something, get overwhelmed at the word "fundraiser", feel like I have nothing to offer, feel like I will be a huge asset, look around and get excited about new social scene, wonder if I will fit into new scene, have regrets about my outfit, see someone with haircut I really like, remind myself to ask who cuts it, and so on and so forth - and all the time wondering if Sophia is enjoying herself, being kind, and introducing everyone to Diego and Pedro.

Can such a person really be trusted with the parenting of Sophia S. and Olivia Foo? Is this allowed?