Well here it is. The day my children have alternately dreaded and anticipated all summer long. The day I’ve been so anxious about for the past few weeks. The day circled in red on our calendar.
The first day of school.
And while I can hardly believe Trey is beginning his next-to-last year of elementary school (wasn’t I just changing his diaper and taking him for walks in his stroller?), I am so proud of the people my children are becoming. I wouldn’t change a minute of this crazy ride for anything.
The day began earlier than usual this year, because for the first time ever, Mom will be joining the kids in walking all the way in to the classrooms at the start of school. It’s been ten years since I last stood in front of a classroom and called myself “teacher” – so I was pretty nervous about how I would handle it all. But we made time for the traditional pictures in front of our house:
All was well and good until Matt informed me I had to be included in the picture, since it was MY first day of school, too…
To answer the question I know you’re all asking, yes, I did have a first-day-of-school dress all ready to go. However, I found out that the staff were all asked to wear their new McGowen staff shirts – which are black – and of course I don’t have one. I figured the best way not to stick out like a sore thumb was to wear a black shirt, so it was back to the old standbys for me. But I did wear cute shoes.
And as has become custom, I must get a picture of the backpacks.
Crisana chose a Strawberry Shortcake matching duo and Trey chose Bakugan. It’s amazing how his tastes have changed since that Buzz Lightyear backpack he was so proud of in first grade!
Since we arrived at school so early, we were unable to get pictures of us with Mr. McGowen this year. We did the next best thing, though and got pictures at the sign bearing his name:
Then it was off to the classrooms. Since we’d already done the pictures at their desks and with their teachers, there was no need to rehash those. But we hadn’t done the locker pictures, so we started with Crisana…and learned that Mrs. MacInnis loves frogs.
We then discovered that fourth grade does not use lockers. So that was it for our picture-taking adventures.
But the journey has only begun…and it was a lot of fun to begin it together!