Mom and Daughter Both Survived First Day of School

That's right--I sent my little Jaycee off to Junior Kindergarten today (it was for a mere two hours, but it counts). A lot of mixed feelings, but overall excitement for this new stage in our lives. I never thought school would come this fast in child-raising. It's especially scary sending her to school in Milwaukee, but through a series of little miracles with housing when we moved here we ended up in a great school district and only live a couple blocks from the school. Schools weren't something we thought about when we first moved here. Anyway, it was a busy day for Jaycee. She started out playing with Natalie at 8:00 this morning while Amy and I take turns to go running. Then she had her first day of dance class at 10:00. After that she went to school at 12:30. Not surprising, she was completely exhausted by the time we got home at 3:00. We'll tell her first day of school story mostly through the pictures. Here she is eating a quick lunch before we walked to the school. I realize it's a very poorly thought-out picture, but I don't claim to know much about photography. It looks like she has a lamp growing out of her head. We have had way too many battles about the clothes she wears already, so I told her she could choose her first-day-of-school outfit. She did pretty good.
I was bound and determined not to get a crazy cartoon or princess backpack, but once again, I didn't want to have a battle with her. I tried to convince her otherwise, but she chose Princess and the Frog. The colors don't stand out quite as much as the normal princess backpacks. It matched perfectly with her outfit, but it looks way big on her. She still only weighs 30 lbs. She's a very slow grower.

Right before we got to the school she crashed on her bike. I thought she might have bumped her chin or nose, but there were no visible injuries. That may be why she looks a little apprehensive and sad in this picture. Maybe a small sign of the stress a little 4-year-old might feel. We were waiting for her teacher, Mrs. Zeimet, to come take them inside, so she dealt with the waiting by riding around. From what I've seen, her teacher seems to be so awesome. She's so good with the kids, and she knows what she's doing.

Waiting in line to go to their classroom.

Jaycee's lucky because she has three friends that she already knows from our ward that are in her class. We kind of discussed beforehand and decided to do afternoon kindergarten for all of them. The second girl behind Jaycee is Dylan, and the third one is Abbi. I don't know where Drey went, but he was standing with them. Just a quick sidenote: the lady in the black and white shirt behind the kids came up to me afterwards and said Jaycee is definitely going to be her favorite in the class because she's such a sweetheart. I definitely agree with her.

This is when they had completed their first day of school. I loved the smile Jaycee gave me when she realized I was there waiting for her.

And now it's time to go home (after we played at the playground, of course).

There were no tears from me (I hate crying), but I was definitely nervous as well. I hope she has a fun time in school. I hope no one is mean to her. I hope she can be nice to everyone. I hope she can share. I hope she will miss me while she's at school. I hope she will want to learn. So many hopes for her...