Clara's Big Day

Last night, I surprised Clara with a couple of new books at bedtime. She was super excited when I started reading The Night Before Kindergarten and then was beside herself when I went and pulled out The Berenstain Bears Go to School. This was after reading a chapter in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader like we do every night. (I fully realize it won't always be this easy to be viewed as a rockstar mom so I have to enjoy it while it lasts.)

As I put her to bed with her customary songs (that she still insists are necessary for a good night's sleep) she couldn't wipe the smile from her face. I went over some of the things that she needed to remember for her first day of school and then I talked about letting her light shine and that now she has to remember all of the things she's learned from us and from Sunday school since we won't be there to remind her. I also prepared her for being around kids who come from families that don't have the same rules as us and that there may be kids who are mean or who say bad words and that while she still needs to be nice to them, that behavior isn't acceptable for our family. She didn't know what bad words were :) My poor sheltered child. She said, "Like counting in Spanish. Uno is one, dos is 2....... ". I said, "Yeaaaaah, something like that." Not sure where that came from. I guess we'll just cross that bridge when we get there. So after our conversation, I started tearing up just a bit, we said an extra special prayer for her first day and then it was time for lights out.

Morning came and she was up and at 'em as soon as I woke her up. No complaining and no dilly-dallying so that made me very happy. We even had time to leisurely take pictures instead of snapping as we ran to the car.

I took Clara to school on the first day, but Daddy will be her regular driver. School starts at 7:30, so it's not a big deal for him to drop her on his way to work. He wanted to just take her on the first day, but there was no way I was going to miss my eldest's first day of school. I relented with Robert's first haircut, but I had to put my foot down on this one :) Daddy's just don't quite understand. Chris stayed home with Robert so I wouldn't be distracted by his shenanigans.

The drop off line was chaotic even with a policeman directing traffic. Parking was terrible, with everyone parking in fire lanes. We eventually made it inside and I let Clara lead the way to her classroom. She went straight to her desk and started stringing froot loops on a string. There was zero hesitation, even though she was sitting next to a boy who was very distraught. She told me that if he was still upset in a few minutes that she would hold his hand and tell him it was ok. I told her that was sweet but he may not like holding hands. Turns out he lives at the back of our subdivision. His parents recognized us and knew which house we lived in. They actually toured our house before we moved in and decided to build the same model. Small world. Clara's teacher is Mrs. S and seems really sweet. Clara really likes her.

She didn't need me anymore so I got a quick kiss from her and was out of there. No tears for either of us.

I left the house to go pick her up about 15 minutes before school let out since I had no idea what to expect when picking her up. Of course, the line was backed up about a quarter of a mile, with more backed up in a turning lane to turn into the school from the other direction and another line backed up coming out of a gated subdivision. Seems to me there should be one line and those other lines should go do a u-turn and get in line with everyone else instead of trying to merge three different lines, but maybe that's just me.

I was surprised there weren't more kids walking to the subdivision that's right next to the school. There's a sidewalk straight into the subdivision, but I only saw 2-3 parents walk to get their kids and no kids walk by themselves. Hopefully more will after sitting in yesterday's awful fiasco. Cars would block the entrance in and out of that subdivision at times and I saw several people cutting in line and several near misses. It was insane. Robert kept quiet for about the first 10 minutes and then fussed the rest of the time. I finally made it to the front of the line a mere 35-40 minutes after school let out, so about an hour for the pick up.

I looked at the school district's facebook page and people were up in arms about the chaos at all of the schools. It sounds like our school had it good. I get that they needed to make cuts, but you'd think they would've had some kind of plan in place to get these kids who used to be bused in but are now car riders into and out of school in an organized manner. You used to have to be a minimum of .25 miles from school to be eligible for busing; now it's 2 miles. That's a huge number of kids! I looked at the transportation map for our school and there are 2 tiny areas of 2-3 short streets each that meet the new criteria. I would guess they're able to get all of those kids on two buses and not even fill them up.

Ok, enough griping. So Clara loves school. No surprise there. Her favorite part of the first day was the froot loops. She made some friends and can't wait to go back tomorrow.

We met Daddy at Pei Wei for dinner and then Tutti Frutti for dessert to celebrate Clara's big day. Then home and to bed so we can do it all over again tomorrow! And the next day. And the next............