First day of PreK

My family has been so blessed these last few months with finding places to live and making new friends and now with Keahi's preschool. Apparently moving in the summer time--even the beginning of summer--is like committing preschool suicide. I was told that public preschool applications were done by lottery months ago. I stressed about it and called people from so many schools or higher up the ladder and was told I was pretty much out of the game. Then one woman from the school next to us was intrigued by my idea of getting Keahi registered in Prek somewhere-anywhere, have him tested and bumped up to kindergarten (because, honestly, why wouldn't he qualify), and then transfer into the one we live by. But months and stressful phone calls and visits later yielded nothing. And the transfer idea went out the door because there is no test to determine if he's ready for kindergarten. Oh, did you know that a lease is not a valid form of proof of address? Yeah, so I've had to have welcome letters--not bills because I've only lived here for a week--from both the gas and electric company sent over to the school.
But all's well that ends well and at 7:30pm on the first day of school I received a call from the school saying that there was a spot open for the morning half-day class and Keahi could have it as long as I promised to send in those welcome letters to prove I live in the correct zone. Really, I could have had them walk over and see the place cause we do live that close. Anyhow, Keahi was so excited. He had told me he wanted to go to "the jungle gym" school with the big kids where he could learn lots of new things. He was a little disappointed that it wasn't for the whole day and that he wouldn't be eating lunch there, but I think Jarom was even more disappointed that he didn't get to stay with Keahi.
With both kids in backpacks and a late start (since it takes about 5 minutes to get there at Jarom's pace) we headed off for school. Keahi wanted me to leave but that first day was only 1 hour with parents to acclimate the kids. But the next day I left him there with a hug and kiss that I had to ask for as I dragged Jarom out of circle time on the rug. For 2 hours Jarom kept talking to himself saying, "Seahi....Seahi... Where's Seahi..." Poor thing was stuck with me.
I'm so grateful Keahi has this chance to be social with kids his own age and be imaginative and creative. He said his favorite part was playing pirates with the other boys on the playground. One turned into a shark and chased them around and the went down the ship-slide. These are things he can't do with Jarom and I'm a poor substitute for 5 or 6 enthusiastic little boys. Plus now maybe I can work on Jarom and get him to focus on something for more than 3 minutes at a time. Wish me luck.