So How Did It Go? Cassie’s First Day Of Preschool

Yesterday turned out to be an interesting day. After dropping Cassie off for her first day of preschool, Michael took off for work and I stayed home with Sam. For the first time in a loooooong while, I only had one child to take care. One easy-going, fuss-free, sleepy baby who’s sole demand on me was to nurse once between the hours of 8 and 11:30 AM. The rest of the time, she was sound asleep. You have no idea how stress free that made my morning.

I couldn’t believe the stuff I got done yesterday while Cassie was in school. I finished the morning chores in under twenty minutes. I took Sam out for a half-hour walk. I solved a technical problem I’d been having, trying to convert one of my animated cartoons to an AVI file (no small feat to fix that either). I did some research for a few other animation projects I want to do. I even got to sit quietly and enjoy of a decent cup of coffee. Amazing.

Then at 11:30 I headed out to pick up Cassie. What a surprise I got when I arrived. The administrator told me Cassie had had a wonderful morning, but she was now in her classroom doing something no child had ever done in the entire forty-year history of the school.

She was throwing a fit because they wouldn’t let her lie down and take a nap.

Nap time at the preschool starts at noon. Cassie is only signed up for half days, which means I have to pick her up before noon; therefore, no nap for her. She was furious about this. When I walked into her classroom, all the other little tots were laid out on their mats, tucked up in their blankies, watching my child sob hysterically because she couldn’t curl up on a mat too. You had to see it to believe it.

As I tried to calm my screaming demon spawn, I had a talk with the administrator. It’s only a few dollars difference between the full day and the half day price, and Cassie wants so badly to stay for nap time. How can I say no to that? So starting tomorrow, Cassie will be going to preschool for full days on Monday and Friday, and a half day on Wednesday. We can’t do full days on Wednesday because that’s when the playgroup meets, and Cassie would never get to see her best friends (and I wouldn't get to see MY best friends) if she didn’t go to the playgroup. I think that arrangement will satisfy Cassie. Of course, it means I’ll be forced to spend two full days a week taking care of only one child.

However shall I survive?

Here's the artwork for today. I know, I know, it's the Swan Prince drawing again. This version is the final pencil artwork, traced from the sketch I completed two days ago. I made some changes the the wing, one of the legs, and the background. Now that I've got it traced, I'll transfer it to some nice paper and look at inking it. Don't know exactly when that will get done, but it will probably take a couple of weeks. Meantime, I've got the gothic cartoon still to work on and another pencil drawing to finish transfering so I can start work on coloring that. So that's three drawing projects on the board right now. Astonishing when you consider that one month ago, I wasn't drawing at all.



The Swan Prince, Work In Progress, 7 September 2006