First Days all around!

Today was Julia's First Day of Kindergarten and Gabe's First Day of Preschool. (Plus it was my first day of preschool for this year and Evy's first day as a napper through preschool. She slept the whole class. Atta girl.) What an exhausting emotional roller coaster for me...

Most people already know how I feel about sending Julia off to kindergarten. But after she left today I only had time for a tear or two before I had to get ready for preschool to begin. And it's a good thing I kept busy or I may have cried a lot more. I am not a big crier. But Julia is my first baby and has been at preschool with me since before she was born. I loved having my big boy Gabe in preschool today, but I truly missed my girl. I just love having my kids at home. They are my peeps. And my being slightly resistant to change doesn't help much either.

Julia, on the other hand, was ecstatic about her first day. All morning she carried around her back-pack and said things like, "I can't believe my first day is actually here! I just can't believe it!" So imagine my shock when she was all-frowns at the end of school. I asked about her class and she just started crying. All I could make out was that she fell at recess. But it was not like her to carry on about that.

Well you can imagine what I did! I hugged her and rocked her and rashly told myself she was never going back to school again. Back at home I noticed she was hot so I checked her temperature. Sure enough, it was high. After some Tylenol, resting with a TV show, and flowers and pink milk from Daddy, she was back. She told us all about her teacher and the classroom and the playground and how very very excited she is for the 100th day of school party. (They must have begun the count down. This could be a long 99 days...)

I asked questions and listened and loved hearing all she had to tell. (Especially her recount of seeing a neighborhood friend at recess. She said, "I told him, 'Hey, I under-spect you. You are Nathan!'" She meant "recognize." I suppose understand/expect could mean about the same as recognize.) And then I resolved to let her go back tomorrow, temperature-pending. Bummer. I thought for a second there I got to keep her for good. My baby loved school just like I knew she would. And I guess I really shouldn't cry over that. Or at least I'll try not to.

Not sure why Gabe is so sad in every picture. 

He really was quite excited for preschool.

 There's my Gabey!

Oh brother, he is already looking too cool for school.

Julia loves her sparkly shoes.

And here is Evy. May her next 5 years creep slowly by...

P.S. Here is Julia on the second day - just as excited as the first. Hopefully she comes home with that smile this time!