First day of school 1.0

Today was Mooka's first day of school...sort of. I am finding that they make it easy for kindergartners to make the transition by having a week worth of firsts. Today was an hour orientation that I was able to attend with her. Tomorrow is two hours on her own. Monday and Tuesday are half days. Then finally, Wednesday, she will go for a full day. I love that they ease into it, but if you are trying to capture the true "first day of school" it makes it a bit difficult.

Anyway, so here is version 1.0.



The orientation was set up so that the kids were separate from the parents. I was completely shocked when she grabbed a hold of my arm and asked me to not let go of her hand. (No, I did not cry.)

A teacher came over and introduced her to some other girls and took her hand to lead her into the room. She blew me a kiss and away she went. (No, I did not cry.)

I went into her classroom to get her things situated and to meet her teacher. As I sat in the tiny chair and looked around the room, everything just felt completely surreal. (No, I did not cry.)

Afterwards, I was able to walk Mooka through her class and show her the desk. She is sitting in a quad with three other little girls. I noticed that there is another quad of girls very near by, so the class is nicely blended with a total of 14 children. We finished our tour and then it was time to go.

As I drove her to one of her last days at daycare, I looked in the rear view mirror to see her looking out the window while sucking her thumb and twirling her hair just like she has done since she was a baby. Neither one of us said much.

When I walked her up to daycare to join her brother, she did not want to go "because those are the little kids and I'm in school now."

It's so hard to be in that transition phase.

Baby Bear came running right up and started asking all sorts of questions, so off they went.

I got back to my car and sobbed all the way to work. The exact same way I did 5 short years ago when I dropped her off with her Grandpa on my first day back from maternity leave.

Cherish each day because they just fly by.