Fish Out of Water: Mission Accomplished

We did it. We got them both off on their first day of school without a hitch. Even better, they came home happy and excited to go again. Grace really seemed to like her first day of kindergarten. She made a friend who's name she thinks may be Isabella and met a boy named Hawke (what the??) She didn't even come home exhausted like I thought she would. I'm still waiting for that to hit as I'm sure it will. By supper time though, it was obvious she was feeling the effects of her long, busy day.

Kristin was Kristin. She has always loved school and never been afraid to go even when she was just starting out and didn't know anyone. Last year when we had a few snow days (odd in these parts) she was the one kid that was sad when school was cancelled. She missed 16 days of school last year, 10 for sickness and 6 for family related activities. 5 of those were to go to Disney World. As excited as she was to go to WDW, if you can believe it, this kid was a little sad to be missing school and her friends. (again, what the??) As it turned out, our kids liked Epcot the best, the most educational of the 4 parks. What can I say? Really, what can I say?

Kristin's only hiccup yesterday was when she left the class to go to the restroom and then inadvertently returned to her old first grade class instead of the new 2nd grade one. She got as far as opening the door before she realized, "This isn't right. Why is Mrs. Stoner in here?" She'd gone to a completely different hall. Nevertheless, she recovered and made it back to the appropriate class unfazed and no one the wiser.

It is a little fun for both girls to be at the same school for the first time ever. In past schooling experiences (pre-K) we only had one kid in at a time. They were never there together. It's nice for me to know that Kristin, the pro, is there to take care of Grace if needed.

Elliott and I had a nice time at home. I had laundry to do and errands to run. She graciously joined me without complaining (much). Her pre-K does not start for another 2 weeks but I decided to let her go ahead and wear her new school shoes since her sisters got to wear theirs. She hasn't taken them off except to sleep. She woke up this morning so we could take Kristin and Grace to school and just had to have on her new shoes right away (and her new Alabama socks courtesy of Nana. Roll Tide). She's a trooper. She seems ready to start school too and keeps asking when does she get to go.

I took some pictures but still plan on doing an actual back to school photoshoot because I missed my opportunity yesterday. Too much excitement going on when they got home and so I didn't want to force them (which is usually what I have to do to get my over-photographed children to stop for a minute so mommy can "practice.") into a photoshoot. I guess that means I'll either have to wash their first day of school clothes or pull them out of the dirty clothes basket in order to get the full effect. Most likely it will be the latter. Should I have just admitted that? So here's what I got on the actual first day.