First Day--We Did It!

Whew. We (mainly I) survived the first day of school. I am so glad it is behind us. As in most things, the build up is worse than the actual experience, so my nerves are shot and I'm ready to have this whole kindergarten deal be old hat. Despite all of the pre-first day jitters that Jillian was experiencing, she woke up on Thursday excited and ready to roll. In fact, leaving the house on the first day of school was probably the easiest out of the house transition we've made in the history of forever. Really. It will never be that seamless again. Before we departed for the ceremonial drop offs, we took the obligatory photos.

And then we got in the car and I realized I forgot to take a pic with them, so this had to do. Buckled in, ready to roll, thumbs up!

The girls selected the music for the drive in and we were singing and jamming along. I felt the lump in my throat about 1/4 mile away from school and noticed that my usual 'pedal to the metal' driving style slowed considerably. I was giving myself a pep talk in my head. We waited in the drop off line for just a minute or so (because we were actually very on time. This may never happen again), and then we pulled up to where Jillian was supposed to hop out of the car and be escorted into the school by one of the teachers assisting with drop off. She lingered quite a bit as I was giving her a pep talk, prayed over her, lots of hugs and kisses between she and I and she and Adrienne. A teacher came to the car to help her open the door and I told her this was our first day, and she was so kind and sweet and excited as she helped Jillian out of the car....and then she just walked into that big school.

You can see her about to walk into the school; just to the right of the lady walking out of the school

And then I cried. I cried behind my sunglasses as we drove the 1 minute between Gibbs and Kingdom Kids, and  then pulled myself together to be excited for Adrienne's "drop off ceremony".

Had to take some pics in front of the school sign.

Adrienne tried to tell me goodbye in the parking lot, but I assured her I had to walk her in. She was ready to go. A quick photo op in front of her hanging backpack before our farewell hug and kiss.

And she just walked right in! Mrs Leif welcomed the second school enthusiast from our family into her room.

Mrs Leif's room is the only one with a window. This is great for peeping on your kid the first few minutes of her school career. Adrienne is at the calendar trying to find her name with the assistant, Mrs Digmann. Bless your heart, Adrienne, here is where your mother slightly apologizes for giving you a long name. Just look for the A, baby.

And then she quickly found some tinker toys.

I didn't cry dropping Adrienne off. I hopped in the car, called my mom, and then met my BFF for coffee (she had just dropped her youngest off for K as well). After coffee, I managed to run 5 (yes, FIVE) errands in the remaining 90 minutes! Yay me! While Adrienne will normally go to lunch buddies, I decided to just pick her up on the first day right away and take her to a special lunch to celebrate. When I picked her up she ran to me and proclaimed, "Mom! I didn't pee my pants!" Well thank the Lord for that. After further discussion I learned that she "played on the big playground like Jillian", "colored wif deez markers dat you just wipe off wiff an eraser and den make another picture" (sounds like a little dry erase fun), and that "God wanted it to be light".

At Pi Pizza, giving preschool the thumbs up.

After we ate lunch, she asked if it was time to go get Jillian....and no, it was not not. We still had another 3 1/2 hours. This was kind of strange. We went home, and I had my tired little preschooler take a rest on the couch with a movie of her choice--FROZEN. I got a bazillion more things done and took a little snooze myself (emotions will wear one out, ya know?), and then we headed back to Gibbs. I thought about Jillian constantly, wondering what she was up to, if she was having fun, etc. I arrived a solid 5 minutes early to find the biggest cluster of a pick up line. Some people parked, some people parked on the side, and others of us were supposed to make a nice little line to pull forward and load our kids in the same manner we dropped them off. It was a mess. While I think the school did so awesome in helping/ushering us newbies through the process at drop off....pick up, not so much. So after having trouble discerning where the line actually began, another nice first-timer let me cut in front of her in the line. 20 minutes later Jillian was in the car. The report? "It was AWESOME!!! Can I go back tomorrow?!?!?"

Thumbs up for kindergarten! Wearing her ribbon she colored (hard to read in the pic but it says "I Started Kindergarten Today")

She came home starving because she only ate about half her lunch ("My tummy was just kind of funny". I'm sorry to have genetically passed on some classic nerves to you, Jillian). The report was she had PE, colored lots of pictures, had goldfish for a snack, helped someone find his name on the chart (Nathan) because he couldn't find it, got a sticker for moving up to purple on the behavior chart (meaning she had an awesome day), sat by someone named Fate at lunch, and didn't learn anything about God.

Hooray for a successful first day! I'm exhausted, girls, how about you?