Oh.  Man.  Kiran is going to LOVE preschool!  We were able to visit this morning for about 45 minutes and be involved in some free play time, their morning greeting, and story time.  It was a fantastic experience.

There are four teachers (one head teacher and three assistants) with a class of about 16 students.  In this year’s class, there was another heart warrior we know, so it was really fun to see him!  Another little boy came right up to Kiran when we first went over to the rug to check out the toys and said hi with no prompting from any of the grown-ups.  This warmed my heart so much.

The head teacher and the assistant who interacted the most with Kiran (the one who has been there the longest – also the one the head teacher said she would put with Kiran initially since she is the most experienced) were both amazing.  Seeing the way they included Kiran and were able to accommodate him very easily in the routine helped put my mind at ease.

We also briefly met the occupational therapist, speech-language pathologist, principal, and school nurse.  These were more whirlwindy greetings, but I got a good feeling about everyone we came in contact with this morning.

One very meant-to-be type moment occurred during the morning greeting.  They have a cute little rhythmic thing they do with hand motions – I couldn’t remember if I tried – but then say hello to each person by name (kids and adults both).  And they do this in the different languages of all the diverse students in both classes (morning and afternoon).  Today just so happened to be hello in gujarati – Arif’s family’s language – apparently there is a child in the afternoon class whose family speaks this language as well.  The odds of this … let’s put it this way … before meeting Arif, I had never even heard of the language.  So the fact that our little neighborhood preschool in West Des Moines, Iowa happens to have a family who speaks it and today happened to be the day to use that greeting….

Yeah.  It was all around a good experience today.  Kiran loved watching all of the kids, interacting with the adults, trying to mouth the toys (They have a “yuck bucket” that I think Kiran will make sure is full every day with toys that have been in his mouth.), and listening to story time.

Now.  I did tear up at one point, and I am surprised I was able to actually hold the tears in my eyeballs – not one made it down my face.  This will not be the case when he actually starts preschool.  I can absolutely guarantee it.  But seeing how happy and excited he was (He told us ALL ABOUT IT all the way home!) and seeing how he didn’t even bother trying to find Arif or me when we were sitting behind him out of his line of vision….

He will love it.  And it seems, he will be well cared for.  I am still glad it is months away, but today was helpful.