First Day of School

The clothes and hair-do are always important on the first day! Sarah takes it to a whole new level though.

Spencer's all dressed and ready to go! He picked his shirt that Grandma Jennings bought for him.

It's hard to describe exactly how I was feeling at this moment: excited to have a quiet moment or two with just little baby Alli, scared that Sarah's teacher won't understand her, absolutely torn at having Spencer taken from me, nervous that lunch will go just right for both kids, glad I get to spend the rest of the day with my husband and mom, and I couldn't wait until they came back with stories to tell!

That moment of sending your child on the school bus, which is completely out of your control, is a bit overwhelming. I'm able to do it because they love it and so far have come home safe and sound.

What a day full of emotions but as my kids reported it wasn't so bad and now I'm loving the time I have to scramble and try to catch up on my life that seems to have melted away somewhere in the last 9 or 10 months.

Sarah had a bunch of "I don't knows" to accompany her reports, but a smile goes a long way for me. She loved lunch of course, and says she loves her teacher.

Spence sent me into tears when he told me "I didn't play at recess (in the bravest way, trying to hold back his tears) because I will bonk into the other kids, and my teacher says I can't bonk into other kids." That was hard to compose myself. Because of the new school there is only one jungle gym and way too many kids. I guess they take turns playing on the jungle gym or playing on the grass field.

I got it under control when he told me how much he loved building with the blocks and that he found the bathroom all by himself. Then I became uncomposed again when he said "my heart was breaking in peices, and I felt cold, and my chest hurt." This was at lunch time. He said the counselor played cars with him instead of going to recess because he didn't feel good.

Justin and I have always worried that Spence would be a bit of perfectionist at school and sure enough he just takes the rules sooo literal. Someone tells him something and he'll follow it to the T!

He came home with new pants on from the office on his second day, and every mom knows what that means. I guess they aren't allowed to get out of their seat at lunch and they have to raise their hand for help.

Well, you can't exactly see our little Spence all that well in a huge crowd of kids. He told me "I tried to tell somebody I needed to go potty and no body could hear me." He also said (sitting in a chair at the table with his chin in his hands, elbows propped on the table) "mom, it was so so hard to tell somebody what happened." That really made me loose it!

Well, smooth sailing for Sarah except the teacher tells me she really is having a hard time understanding her--I keep telling her she'll get it eventually (it took her other teachers a while too).

As you can see, it was a little rough for Spence at lunch and recess for the first week, but he seems to be enjoying both now and his teacher told me "he's just so cute that I want to fold him in half and stick him in my pocket!" We have the bathroom thing at lunch figured out now and he sits on the end of the table at lunch so all the teachers can see him now too. The bus driver loves how observant Spence is and told us how he sees things that other kid would never notice, and says he's the best little kindergartener she's ever had!