First Day of School {2012}

There are little moments of today that I want to remember.

And this is one of the reasons why I blog.

To preserve such things.

The kids went to bed much later than planned last night because Nick’s soccer practice was seriously.ridiculously.long. Like enough already. Like it’s the night before the first day of school and we still need dinner and showers. We walked in the door at 8:30 pm.

The fastest dinner ever. Followed by showers and baths. Manicures. Packing lunchboxes. Getting backpacks ready.

The kids went to sleep pretty fast after heading upstairs. Which is awesome because I was expecting the excitement of a first day to keep them awake.

Thank goodness for small blessings.

The alarm was set super early this morning. Everyone woke up the first time I gently issued the wake-up call. Which is pretty shocking.

But I’ve been a mom long enough to know that that’s not going to last.

But for now? I’ll take it.

Madeline has a uniform for her new school, and the pre-k kids get to wear their gym uniform. Which is another little blessing. She didn’t say a word about having to wear it, and I promised her we could do her nails and hair and she could wear fun sneakers to make sure her personality (all 1,863 ounces of it) was fully present. (And that’s not the exact weight of her personality, natch).

I drew small hearts on our hands, as a small reminder of home and that I love her, should she need a little reassurance during the day.

Nick came downstairs and saw Madeline in her uniform for the first time.

“Maddie, you look cute. But you kind of look like a little old man.”

She made a face at him and stuck out her tongue.

Phew.

Ten minutes early to Nick’s bus stop, leaving plenty of time for first day pictures.

I wasn’t allowed to give him a kiss or a hug as he walked towards the bus. Apparently in front of your friends, when you’re in fifth grade that is no longer cool.

Whatever.

And then the dash to Madeline’s school. Her school starts their morning assembly exactly 5 minutes about Nick’s bus comes. One town away. Right.

At the orientation last week, I asked if it was a huge problem if she was late every day of the school year. We would likely be squeaking in at the end of the assembly. When they’re saying their morning prayers as a school, and the Pledge of Allegience. There’s no way I can get her there earlier.

“That’s ok, right?” I was asking more to alert the teacher of the situation, since I had already talked to the Principal about it. “We can make the sign of the cross when we walk in?”

I was half-kidding. No disrespect to our religion, of course. The good news is that for the first day we made it there while the school was still in the assembly, so we caught the last prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance.

Problem avoided. Or for today anyway.

Madeline heard me say something about Catholic school last night, and this morning as she was getting dressed she asked me, “What does Catholic school mean?”

“Well, it means that you will have religion class every day, for starters. And go to church as a school, with your classmates. And say prayers together.”

“What is religion class?”

“It’s where you learn about God…”

She stopped me.

“Oh, like Eli is with God in heaven, I get it, I get it.”

And that was the end of that. Eli + God = all good. (There is not a day that goes by that one of the kids fails to mention Eli, he is sorely missed)

Last peek before I left her this morning.

Getting name tags.

When I picked Madeline up, she stopped on the steps outside the school to start rummaging in her backpack. She couldn’t wait to hand me her folder, and her first piece of artwork from the day.

Which is, of course, already hanging up in our kitchen art gallery.

After school, I surprised the kids and took them to Yogurtland. The Ex came with us, surprising the kids at Nick’s bus stop.

All positive reports at the end of the day. Nick was thrilled to discover that there were BOYS in his class. The facebook group for the school had only girls’ parents checking in, as to who had what teacher. I wasn’t worried, but he was a little, um, wtf? Actually there turned out to be more boys than girls, and he knows several of them already. (There are seven fifth grades at his school, roughly 150 kids, so he doesn’t know them all). Madeline reported that they prayed three times, had recess, circle time, wrote their name, went to the bathroom, and she liked everyone.

As we drove home to meet Nick’s bus this afternoon, Madeline told me that everything was very good today, “except one bad thing that you’re not going to like, Mommy. I didn’t finish my crackers and cheese, but the teacher didn’t wrap it up, she just threw it away. I told her that was wasting.”

She cracks me up.