August 14th, 2008

This photo pretty much sums up the morning. One child experiencing sheer and joy and utter excitement for this next step in becoming a “big kid”, and one child who’s obviously pissed that the long days of swimming and video games has suddenly turned to long division and cursive.

This is Dade’s 4th school in 4 years and I feel horrible about it, but his teacher seemed much more similar to the ones he got in the south…. way more exited about kids than his teacher last year. Ailie’s teacher, while friendly and warm, still looks like she means business and keep a tight reign. For those of you who haven’t spent a lot of time with Ailie, that’s EXACTLY what she needs.

Ailie dismissed me as soon as we got to her classroom. I got a quick tour, we put her lunch away, and then I got a kiss and a wave good-bye. Other parents were hovering and other kids were clinging… Ailie was off to the activity table just like the teacher asked, all but kicking me in the pants as I walked out the door. *shrug* What can you do?

There is a very inconvenient HOUR between the time Ailie starts school and the time Dade starts school, so Dade and I took advantage of that and went for chocolate milk and scones. This was a bit of a tradition when he was younger and it was just him and I… so it’s nice to be able to do it once in a while before he stops wanting to hang out in public with his mom. He even held my hand as we walked to class… I would have guess 3rd grade was some sort of cut off for that type of behavior, but I’m not complaining.

And because the first day can never go smoothly, someone else’s offspring pulled the fire alarm just as Dade’s class was getting started. Out we all filed to the school yard while you could tell faculty were scrambling around trying to get the alarm turned off. Dade was totally fine with this of course, and once I got him squared away with his class on the school yard I went to see how Ailie fared in the chaos. Kindergarten classes get walked out single file to the baseball field, and when I found Ailie she was far more concerned that her back pack was getting burnt than anything else. I assured her that this was just a test, but if for some reason her backpack did get burnt… I was sure we could buy her another one.

So far… day one is going well…
More photos here…