FINALLY! First Day of Preschool.

I say Finally for Grady's sake... not for mine. I'll miss having my sweet boy around. When his brother isn't around to tease him he is a little angel.

So, let me start with Sunday night because this post will be more than just Grady's first day of pre-school. It'll also be all about Grady's brain (refer to post about him taking over the world from last month).
Sunday night we were driving home from Brandon's parent's house when Grady pipes up and says, "5 and 5 is 10". We did the standard, "good job". A few seconds later he says, "3 and 3 is 6". We praised him some more and then it occurred to us that he might actually be doing addition, not just spouting off equations that he memorized from his Leapster. I have NO idea how he learned to do this. I won't take credit for being one of those mom's who's been working with her kid before pre-school. During the drive we asked him to solve other problems and he got them ALL! As long as the answer isn't over 10 he can get it. Somehow he learned to put up the right amount of fingers and then count them while pointing at them. We were very impressed, since Daxton just learned addition in kindergarten.
So, yesterday I decided I was going to encourage this learning streak of his and work with him on his letters. I got out the Alphabet white board that we bought when Daxton was learning his letters. Grady and I sat down to start learning how to identify them. Low and behold... the child knew 24 of the 26, in upper and lower case.
The only way I can think of that he learned all this was on his leapster. Two of the games he has are, Letters on the Loose, and Numbers on the Run. Hooray for the Leapster!
We also worked on learning to write his name yesterday, so he could write it on his papers at pre-school. He was very patient with himself and when he messed up he'd just erase and start over. We used a white board so it was more fun, and easier to erase.
Last night when I was leaving his room he said to me, "Mom, my name is spelled, G-R-A-D-Y." I knew he was thinking about school being in the morning. It must have taken him two hours to fall asleep. He got up several times to tell us "sumping". When Brandon went up to get him back in bed he asked him if it was morning yet.
If school had started at 6:30 this morning Grady would have been ready. Unfortunately it didn't start until 9:45... or so I thought. We took Daxton to the bus and then Grady asked if it was time for his school. I told him no, that I had to take a shower first and we had to go pick up some blueberries, and then it would be time. He told me to just not take a shower... that I could take him in my jammies. That made me chuckle, but I explained to him that it just wasn't time yet.
On our way home after picking up the blueberries he got a sad face and said, "mom, I'm sorry I have to go to school."
I've been playing up the fact that I will miss him when he's at school. I assured him that it was OK and that I would be okay without him.
So, as we were entering our neighborhood at 9:30 I saw a friend, whose son is in Grady's preschool, leaving the neighborhood and I began to wonder if preschool starts at 9:30, not 9:45. We hurried and got his backpack and rushed over to Miss Nicole's house (down the street). It turns out that school started at 9:15! I made him late for his first day! I felt bad and I think he was embarassed to have all the attention. As evidenced by this pic:
He stands like that when he's embarassed.

Here's some pictures from when I picked him up:

He had a great time. He can't wait to go back.