My Daughter's First Day

My daughter started her first day of Kindergarten yesterday. We were lucky enough to be able to walk her into the classroom. I kept waiting for the school officials to tell us, that we couldn't go any farther, but they never did. I took tons of pictures along the way.

My husband and I planned the morning carefully. I got up first to have my quiet time and coffee. It was hard to concentrate on the quiet time because I just thinking about how my baby wouldn't be spending the day with us anymore. Then he got up and we both dressed. Next, I started breakfast, pancakes. We have never really eaten breakfast as a family. I think this may be a new tradition in our new phase of life. He brought the kids down as I was mutilating one of the pancakes. That threw our breakfast a little behind schedule. Finally we all had pancakes and were eating. Here is my daughter enjoying her first day breakfast:

and my son:

and the cook:

Next, we brushed teeth and I did her hair, in two braids with bows attached. My husband got my son dressed while I threw my own hair together. Then my daughter and I started "the great photo shoot." This one was my favorite.

A daughter/daddy picture.

Here is one of me with the kids. I prefer to take the pictures.

I loved this picture of my son.

We jumped into the car and headed to the school. The parking around the school is pretty limited to we parked across the street. I had a blast taking pictures with the school sign in the background, outside the school, outside her classroom, with her teacher, and at her desk.
She sat down at her desk and started coloring a frog her teacher had set out for them to do.

It looks like my son is wondering where his desk is going to go. Jason and I talked to her a little about her classroom. I scanned the classroom to see what was going on. They had a writing center, reading center, math center, word wall, group area, closets, a restroom (which I pointed out to my daughter), clusters of four desks, and a teacher desk. It was a cute cheery room, but markedly smaller than my classroom in Naperville. Both the classrooms I taught in Naperville were huge. This class was absolutely serviceable, just tighter. Jason and I finally realized that our daughter was doing better than us and we might as well go. It was about five minutes until they were going to kick us out anyway.
A few times in the walk down the hallway to the classroom, in the classroom, and the walk back to the car I teared up. Once we got to the car, I drove Jason to work, went to two different post offices, and Starbucks.

I won a gift card at MOPS Bunco, I decided this was a good occasion to use it.
I also went to Michael's to get something for my son's school work, and back home.
Once we got home, I home schooled my son. He enjoyed it for the most part. He kept telling me no when I asked him to do something. I gently reminded him that he is doing school and doesn't have a choice. Here are some of his materials. He tried telling me no again today. He'll figure out sooner or later he is not getting off the hook.

Then we had lunch, went to the grocery store, came home, put away groceries, and went back to the school to pick up my daughter. I learned how the car pool lined worked. I spent 30 minutes in the car entertaining my son and was nowhere near the front of the line. I watched a woman almost invoke road rage among the 30 something drivers lined up behind me when she tried to cut in line. She finally gave up when she realized that no one was going to let her in.

I was so excited when my daughter got into the car. I made the mistake of asking, "How was school?"
To which my daughter responded, "Good."
I realized my tactical error and changed the question. "What was your favorite part of the day?"
"Recess...and we got real wet because it was so hot outside."

The following though ran through my mind, "oh, that is sweating. I hate to do that so we hibernate all summer dear, unless we are in the pool. What? Recess, ok, let's try again." I changed tactics again.
"What was the book your teacher read about?" Then, I got some real answers. She talked a little about music. That was her other favorite part of the day. She told the music teacher she played the violin. We had a fun snack together while I went through the mountain of paperwork in her "take home folder." She laughed and told me that I had a lot of homework instead of her. Another funny thing that happened is that she told my Mom how she had to walk around the school a lot. I asked about that and she said, "We would get to the classroom, then have to get up and leave again." She told my husband the same thing when we picked him up from work. This sounded crazy until she mentioned at dinner that she had a fire drill, intruder drill, and a weather drill. I thought that was impressive and much needed for the first day. She also had music, lunch, and nap. As far as the nap...she hated it. No shocker. I hope they stop doing it quickly. I think it is a big waste of time, but nice for the teacher. :) My daughter would love to take a book and read, but I am sure her teacher doesn't want that headache. Then all the kids would all want to read books, which would be disruptive. My daughter told me today that everyone goes to the bathroom during nap. Yes, they are smart kids to find that flaw in the system so quickly.
So, we have Day 1 and Day 2 down of the new school year. My son was noticeably crankier today than yesterday. He really missed my daughter. I had a mountain of laundry and some mopping to do, that interrupted his all day play time with me. Tomorrow, I have a leadership meeting for MOPS in the morning. I hope that will help to distract him from my daughter's absence by playing with some friends from church.

Congratulations, you made it to the end of the post. My daughter may thank me one day that I chronicled her first day of Kinder.