First day of school!

In Atlanta, today is the day that most area schools started back up officially ending summer for kids and parents everywhere. This is odd to me since I can’t remember starting school before Labor Day when I was younger. Anyway, this is the first year that I have been affected by this day, well beside the fact that traffic gets worse. Today was the first day of Kindergarten for my oldest son, Mac, and it didn’t go as smoothly as we hoped! It all started last night when he realized the day was upon him and that he was truly starting big school. Previously he had been attending a small pre school where he was only there for 3 ½ hours a day. Now he will be in school for almost double the time and will have to eat lunch at school.

This is a huge change for him and I think he was getting overwhelmed thinking about it. He had been so excited about going to his new school all weekend and was telling everyone about it, especially the riding the bus home part. (I am still a little apprehensive about him riding the bus, but that truly was the only thing he was looking forward to doing this morning.) Meg got him up at the crack of dawn and tried to get him ready, but he wasn’t being cooperative at all. Even the thought of wearing new shoes and a new shirt didn’t get him moving. That is usually a good motivation for him (he gets that from him mom), but not today. Not even his new Batman backpack got him excited! (See the image above) By the time we got him dressed and down stairs for a quick breakfast, his little brother was up and excited for Mac to go to school. Actually Henry put on his Winnie the Pooh backpack as well and didn’t take it off until long after Mac left for school. Henry was giving Mac words of encouragement and even mentioned that he didn’t want any tears today. It was pretty funny! Also, Henry promised he would be there at the bus stop when Mac got off the bus. What a sweet little brother!

Anyway, apparently the drop off didn’t go well either. We were expecting traffic around the school but apparently it was much worse than expected and Meg didn’t get him to his room until after the bell rang. So due to the timing, Meg was only allowed to walk him in and kiss him goodbye. She really wanted to get him there early enough to get him settled in talk to the teacher, but that didn’t work out and that only upset Mac more. He didn’t heed his little brother’s advice and there were tears shed.

I am sure that soon after Meg left, he was fine and had started making new friends, but it still is heartbreaking to think of him scared and crying in a strange place that he knows nothing about. I hear his teacher is one of the best at the school and I am sure she was able to make things OK for him. I am sure days like this are more tramatic for the parents than the kids, since they are so resilient. But it still is hard for me to concentrate on my job today when I am so uncertain on how my oldest son is doing. He is still only 4! But I am sure he is doing great. I just don’t want him to have a similar experience to mine when I first went to school. My first grade teacher tramatized me and I cried everyday that entire year. I am still dealing with some issues that stemed from that year! I am just kidding but it was one of the worst memories from my childhood and I don’t want the same thing to happen to Mac.

I fully expect to get home this evening to hear about the fun things that happened to him today and hopfully about the good experice he had on the bus ride home. I hope he will be exicted to go back tomorrow and that every morning won’t be like today. The first day of school has been tough on all of us!