The very first day of school for M & M

Today was the Big Day! The day we have been looking forward to. Marcus and Macey officially had their very first day of school. This is a BIG accomplishment, HUGE! I could hardly imagine just 4 short months ago when we met them both for the very first time that they would be "ready" for a day like today. They have come SO far in the short amount of time that they have been home. I have to go back to some of our old posts from our time in Ukraine to remember were they came from. Some days it seems like only yesterday we were beginning our lives together and other days it seems like they have always been a part of our lives. The Lord have truly blessed out time together.
I attended my first IEP meeting yesterday. For those that do not know it is an important meeting for our Individual Education Plan for each of my kids. They were tested shortly after coming home by the public school system. We wanted to see if they would qualify for services for this upcoming school year. There are 5 categories they would need to partially be delayed in to qualify, they were both delayed in ALL 5 areas - no surprise. I can post details of their report and our meeting another time. Today is a day to celebrate!
Marcus was the first to go to school today. He goes in the morning and is in the 3 year old program. He is one of 7 kids in his class with his lead teacher and 3 assistants. I am pleased with the ratio. I enjoyed our sweet time together. I love to see him when he first wakes up, feed him his breakfast then get him dressed for the day. Except today it didn't quite happen in that order. Marcus did enjoy waking up to his breakfast but made a detour to a morning bath before getting dressed. I say detour because he had a MAJOR blow-out in the highchair. He loves drinking his orange flavored Pedisure now but it must not have agreed with him this time. We got him cleaned up and ready to go to his very first day of school, no worries! We were sure to get plenty of pictures before I left him with his new teachers. They were anxiously waiting for him when we arrived. His other classmates were seated at the table working on puzzles. He sat right up to the table like a big boy, then got down to explore shortly after. Ms. Kendra told me he sat still for circle time, ate a good snack (gold fish we brought for his class) and enjoyed going down the slide outside on the playground. His daily report said he had a great day, you can't beat that. He would only be in class for 2 hours and 15 minutes. It went by quickly for me. When I got home it was time to get Macey and the others fed breakfast. I picked up Daylight doughnuts for us. That's a real treat. Taylor was getting ready for her last day of sewing and dance classes for the summer. We all went to pick Marcus up at 10:45. When we arrived at his school his teacher and aide were each holding his hands as they walked him to my car. My little boy is not so little anymore. He had this adorable back pack on (Thanks to Aunt Tara) and was grinning from ear to ear. I did get a picture of it but he looked back as if to say, "I'll be back tomorrow."
After dropping Taylor off at her classes we had 30 minutes to eat lunch before having to get Macey ready for her Big Day! Macey was excited to "go to school." I wasn't sure if she knew were we were going. We pulled up into the school parking lot and she began screeching with joy. She remembered from the meet the teacher night. Ms. Kendra was waiting outside for Macey to arrive. We took a picture, or two and headed inside to her class. It was great for me to see the same faces from this morning. How nice it's going to be to work with the same team of ladies for both kids. Macey is part of the 4 year old class with 6 other students. Macey was eager to sit at the round table with her classmates. She began the puzzle work right away. Ms. Kendra sat beside her as if to help her. She then also got up to explore the zebra rug with different colored chairs on it. She tried out every color. When I picked her up two hours and 15 minutes minutes later her teachers told me what a great day she had. She went pee-pee in the potty. That is no surprise but they are using a Big Girl potty that is across the hall, you know the bathroom ALL the other kids use. She made it in time. She has bean signing potty for a long time now, she tells us and her workers at church and now school when she has to go. Go Macey! I wish I could have been a fly on the wall today to see how they did for myself. Their teachers seem to be fond of both of them, what's not to love?
We could not have asked for a better day for either of them. That is an answer to prayer. Marcus will go to school 4 days a week and Macey will go 5 (It's the way the program is run). So Marcus is off tomorrow while Macey will go in the afternoon. We don't actually have Friday mornings off. We will continue our private PT/ST with Bob and Michelle. We're looking forward to seeing them tomorrow. They took last week off to go on vacation. It's going to take me some time to get every one's schedules down but give me a few weeks and we'll be running just fine. It's my job and I love it!