First Day of School

The day I dreaded and anticipated with excitement finally arrived, the first day of school. It is such a bittersweet day. It marks the end of the baby years for Gracie and she was more than ready to put them behind her. It was the end of "doing my own thing" too, and I've enjoyed these past two years so very much!  I was lucky to get a two year break between the schooling of my two middle kids. Not many moms can say that!

The first day of school was more exciting and happy than it was a sad ending to some good times. More fun and excitement is waiting for us with all of the opportunities that school brings. I'm especially looking forward to a year of being a high school parent again. High school is a lot more fun than elementary school, as it should be. We're all very happy to add Fenna to our family and liven things up around here. The high school here has a lot of clubs and activities, plenty of sports, dances, field trips and fun things to do. I hope there are some social opportunities for Gracie too, she is tired of being the oldest in our baby play group.

Of course the first day of school started with the kids putting on their new duds. Fenna said she went shopping for clothes at home, so we didn't shop for clothes for her, but we did stock up on school supplies (paper, pens, and that sort of thing). Gracie wore her "America dress" that I picked up for her to welcome Fenna at the airport last week. In a week, she's worn it four times. I shook it, sniffed it, and decided it was fine. I suddenly realized, Gracie doesn't have any shoes!

The child grew two shoe sizes this summer, and she only has flip-flops. I figured I'd wait until closer to school-time to buy her some shoes, no sense in getting shoes for her too soon if she's growing that fast. And.... I forgot.  I searched the school web site for a dress code, but couldn't find one. Hopefully, they will be forgiving on the first day, and the second day too. Lets face it, the first day of school is overwhelming enough for this mama without adding shoe shopping to it too.  Fenna is not suffering from a lack of shoes; I've seen four pair thus far.

Gracie was enrolled in the afternoon kindergarten class, so her first day doesn't start until 11:05am. Unless its a Monday, then she starts at 10:15am.  Or if it's another special schedule day she starts at 8:45am. I guess they use the word "afternoon" loosely. Fenna's classes start promptly at 7:30am, except on late start days (one per month) classes start at 10am. She was supposed to meet her counselor and the other exchange students at 7:20 in the counselor's office, and she'd need 5 minutes or so to walk across campus and find the group. We decided arriving at 7:15 would be perfect. No problem! It is three miles. Three. We left at 7am. I remember leaving at 7:05 - 7:10 to get the girls to school by 7:30.

My memory sucks.

I got her there just in the nick of time! 7:28am. She was late to her group meet-up, but I figured she wasn't officially late for school. Sort of. Ugh. I prayed hard all the way home that she wasn't the only one late for the exchange student tour - maybe the counselor told everyone 7:20 so that they'd be there by 7:30. Yeah, let's go with that story.  Later she told me she was the last one to join their morning meeting and I felt so bad. There was a mile of cars behind me and not one of them had an exchange student? Arg! Just my luck!

The little girls were still in bed, so I had some quiet morning time with Charlie before they got up. Sweet! Lexie went to donate blood before work. Next thing you know, it was time to gather the herd and take Gracie to school.

I loaded the little kids into the double stroller and we trudged up the hill to Gracie's school. It is probably three-quarters of a mile, but uphill the entire distance. Lordy, I am out of shape! I was huffing and puffing like the big bad wolf by the time we got to the top. Beautiful view if you survive the climb. I suppose pushing 90 lbs of stroller and kiddos was what wore me out (stroller is 40 lbs, kids are each 25 or so). Charlie and Libby gained weight the further up the hill we went too. Stinkers.

Kindergarteners line up with their parents outside the schoolyard gate, then the teacher comes out and shoos all the parents back and leads the children inside the gate where they stand on a painted straight line on the sidewalk in front of the classroom. The teacher then shuts the big metal gate which sounds just like a prison cell door being slammed shut in the movies, and then she wraps a thick chain around it and clicks it shut with a padlock as big as my head. I know that security is all for the children's safety and all that jazz, but it seemed really creepy to me. There were plenty of tears shed, but none from Gracie or us.

Three hours later it was time to round everyone up for the end of the day pick-ups. Both girls are released at 2:30, but their schools are in opposite directions so we took the van. I told Fenna earlier that I would pick up Gracie first which would give her time after school to mingle, socialize, ask teachers for help, visit the library, or whatever. I'd be there around 3pm and we picked a spot to meet that morning. Off to Tovoshal, Good Lord the traffic was insane! Cars were driving on the wrong sides of the streets, people honking at each other, cars rushing ahead to get into the long line, just craziness!  I thought the high school traffic was bad in years past, the elementary drivers are worse! It took a long time to get right up to the school parking lot, but I found a spot and parked. The kindergarten kids are not allowed to leave the schoolyard without a parent walking up to the gate and taking them by the hand.  So, I had to take Libby and Charlie out of their carseats, walk to the fence, collect Gracie, walk back, buckle them all in again. I can see this will be an exercise in rapid carseat buckling. Libby does not like being buckled in, she is two. "My do it! My do it!" Guess how long that takes. Uh huh. I just buckled her up while she kicked and screamed about it.

Back into the traffic.  Now I have to turn left to get out of the parking lot and left again at the corner a block away.  Turning left across one lane of crazy people was enough to make me reconsider private school. That second left turn convinced me that private school tuition was worth every penny. I was driving whiteknuckled But, we survived the school traffic and headed downhill to the high school.

As I pulled up to the red light about halfway between the schools, of course I hit it on a red, my brakes decided they were finished.  Nice, I have a van full of runts and my brakes are grinding.  Every stop sign, they got louder.  I pulled up in front of the high school where Fenna was patiently waiting in the hot sun (note to self: we need to pick a shady spot) and my brakes are now grinding very loudly!  Back up the street toward home and we were drawing stares from pedestrians. This just isn't good. We got  home just fine and had no problems with actual slowing and stopping, but there might not be much left of my rotors.

Gracie and Fenna both had a good first day of school. Gracie made a new friend. She didn't know her name, but her hair smelled fantastic. The two girls smelled each other's hair like a couple of puppies getting acquainted (almost). Gracie said she sits at a table with David and Daniel and the girl with nice smelling hair, but the David and Daniel are different boys than the David and Daniel at preschool. Must be popular names for boys this year.

Fenna met lots of people including the exchange students. She said she didn't smell anyone's hair, but she did make lots of acquaintances. Mostly she focused on learning what the class expectations would be and where things are located. The high school is very big and a lot different from her high school back home. The classrooms here all open to the outside, and the middle of the campus is an outdoor courtyard where everyone eats lunch. There is block scheduling, so she has another first day with the rest of her classes tomorrow. Sounds like it was a good day for everyone.


First day of school was a success! Only 178 more to go!