on the eve of preschool

My baby girl, who is almost 3, is going to start preschool next week.  To say I have mixed emotions about it is unrealistic.  When I think about it, I want to curl up under a rock with her and pretend that time isn't going on.  She's my baby and always will be.  However, on the other hand, I know she'll do great in school.  She loves other kids, being around them and being exposed to what they're doing.  She doesn't get a lot of interaction with other kids her age, mostly just way older kids or her baby brother, so I'm interested to see what it's going to be like.  The problem I'm really facing is that she can't communicate with other kids or express her needs.  She's going to be in the special needs classroom and we got special permission so that she could start at the beginning of the year at 2 years old (because her birthday isn't until October) so that she can get the extra help of another year of preschool.  She'll have lots of one-on-one attention and the ability to learn what school is, so that's good.  Also, she'll have all the specialists (Speech, OT, and PT) that will come in the classroom to work with her and teach the teacher and paras what she needs as well. 

We considered putting her in an integrated classroom where there were half "normal" kids and half special needs kids.  The idea behind this was to expose her to other kids who were normally talking and running around like 3 years olds "should."  We decided against it because I just couldn't do it.  We observed a class one day and it seemed to me that the kids were so much older and more "normal" than my monster ever would be.  They were playing together and sitting at the table and doing all the preschool activities that you imagine they'd be doing... while Monster just sat by herself on the floor.  There were a number of adults in the room and they said that she'd have a para especially one-on-one with her, but I still felt uncomfortable.  Would she get the attention she needed? What if she freaked out? What if she didn't?  What if she just sat there?  There were no kids with physical needs that I could see, so Monster would be the only one obviously different.

I don't know how I'm going to feel next week, but at least I've met the teacher and the teacher has met Monster and knows what she's like/what she needs to focus on.  I'm very excited/nervous for this BIG milestone in my baby's life and in my mama life... Now to figure out what to do with Goo...