First day of Preschool!

We can't believe how fast this day got here, but today was the first day of preschool! Clara and Elena told us last spring that it was time to start going to school - so we found them this preschool that we absolutely love, and charged in to this bold new phase of our lives.

Let us not suppose this is a serious phase, though - this is what every other shot from this morning's "first day of school" photo session looked like!

In the car on the way to school today, Clara told Elena: "If ever you shy, I give you a hug." And Elena said: "Oh, thank you!" When prompted she said that she would give Clara a hug, too, but Clara said: "I not so shy! I say 'Pleased to meet you. What you name?' to my new friends. I get lots of handshakes." We told her that perhaps the other kids would not know how to shake hands, and that she could teach them.

We didn't take pictures of the girls in their room today, but we did when we took them to orientation last week. So here's a look at their day:

Cubby!

The preschool has one whole wall of one-way-mirror that Steve and Christina got to sit behind today. We couldn't take our eyes off the girls - they were incredible! They both went right to the art table and made Mommy some pictures. At one point Clara left to go to the bathroom, and their teacher tried to help another girl sit next to Elena. Elena adamantly saved the seat for her sister, so they got another chair for the other little girl.

We tore ourselves away after about half an hour so that we could go get some work done, but we were the first parents back to pick up their kids, and the girls were happy to see us, and happy to stay in their classroom. We had to really work on them to leave. The teacher put up a slide show of photos from the day we could watch, and it looks like the girls interacted with lots of other kids and had a really fun day.

When we were leaving preschool, Clara said: "I got a good idea! We go get..um..bagels? No mom, what I thinking?" Christina was pretty sure she was thinking about burritos, and sure enough, that turned out to be her plan. So we went and had a special celebratory burrito lunch with all four of us.

The girls seemed to realize pretty quickly that stories about their day are like their new currency - we really want them, and they dole them out to us. They told us several times on the drive to get burritos that they were "too busy tell you story right now." We respect that they want to keep some of this for themselves, but we hope to hear more stories soon!

What very big, very wonderful girls they are. We are so very proud.