First day

Well, we survived the first full day of kindergarten!

Things didn't start out so well. Despite getting up early and having clothes laid out and plans made, we still ended up really rushing out the door. I had forgotten to include requisite first-day photos and school day traffic into my plan, so Amelia and her extremely frazzled mom arrived in her classroom right as the late bell was ringing. And then I realized we had forgotten our big bag of school supplies for the classroom! Not at all what I had envisioned for our girl's first day of formal schooling. We certainly weren't the only ones running late, and Amelia settled right onto the rug with the rest of the class. But I left feeling stressed and unsettled and a bit like a failure mom. And I felt like I crying for about 10 reasons. But there was a wild man three-year-old to tend to back at home, so I finished my coffee and pulled myself together.

Although I worried that the day would drag on forever while I fretted about whether I had permanently scarred our daughter by being so stressed on her very first day of school, I found that when you're busy and caring for another child, 2:10 comes around pretty quickly... and Isaac and I were off on our walk to school to pick up Amelia.

Amelia came out with her teacher and the other walkers and greeted us happily. On the walk home and at dinner, she told us about meeting a new friend "with black hair" whose name she couldn't remember. She told us about her Take Home Folder, where her teacher would "send important notes" for Mom and Dad and where we could send notes back to the teacher and that we needed to bring it back everyday. When I asked how she liked her packed lunch, she asked me if I could "please put a note in [her] lunchbox everyday" and told me that I "forgot the cucumbers" on her cream cheese bagel. She told us about having goldfish for snack. She told us that she earned one "dolphin dollar" for "sitting like a star scholar" and that when the whole class had a good day, they would earn marbles to go in a jar and when the jar is full, they would get to have "a sock party or a popcorn party or a pajama party." She said that their "special" that day (love that they still call it that after all these years!) was P.E. and that they played a game where they ran around and then stopped in a place "with lots of space around" them. She said they toured the library and learned about what is good for books and what is bad for books (good= backpacks, bookmarks, bad=water, food). And she said she saw the other neighborhood girls on the playground.

She was definitely tired, as exhibited by the short temper with her brother and the eye rubbing that started around 6pm, but I could tell she really liked it. And I promised her we would get to school a lot earlier the next day!

Rocky start, smooth finish.

(And I am proud to report that we were some of the first folks to arrive for class on day 2 -- and we remembered the school supplies and the Take Home Folder!)