One day down! Whew...

I thought I would have like 6 months to blog about the first day of school but I already have 3 friends who have posted about it so I guess I had better get mine out there as well! And find lazier friends who I can keep up with...

Braelyn started kindergarten today! I am sure you can guess how I was feeling but I didn't want to make her nervous or sad, and I am a very ugly crier so I kept praying to keep some sort of control on my emotions about the experience. I was very blessed to feel okay about everything and was really able to focus on how fun and exciting this was going to be for her. We had everything ready a few weeks before so we had a calm night and I set the alarm for the 6:30 the next morning. I figured Braelyn or me or both of us would have a hard time sleeping but we both slept right up to the alarm. We had written out a schedule of the things she needed to do in the morning and she had memorized and checked the list again first thing. Braelyn isn't a breakfast eater until later in the morning so as she tried to choke down her chocolate shredded wheat she started to get emotional about the day. We both had our moment of tears and she said she was nervous. I wanted to tell her I was too, but after I held her hand for a minute and told her she would do great we both seemed ready for the day. She was very excited to get dressed and remembered to brush her teeth, comb her hair and wash her face just like our list said. We got her backpack on and went outside to take a few pictures. While we were on the front porch poor Berkley woke up and couldn't find anyone in the house! It was only about 2 minutes but she probably thought we had forgotten her. Once we got close to the school it seemed very busy so I parked on the street and we walked in. Braelyn remembered where her classroom was and found her seat right away. I didn't want to linger so we took the picture, said "I love yous" and were on our way. She waved and smiled and everything felt ok! We stopped for a doughnut at the cafeteria and when I peeked in on our way out Braelyn was leaned over to the boy sitting next to her happily chatting away.
When we picked her up that afternoon she was still happy and excited to tell me about her day. I expected her to be a little tired and probably a bit grumpy but she was an absolute angel until bedtime. She told me about art: they did NOT make a craft today, lunch: crinkle paper chips (Sunchips) an apple and some sort of sandwich with meat on a bun that she did not like too much, recess: which was her absolute favorite and she got to play with her friends from the Little Owls class and that the worst part of her day was when another teacher blew her whistle twice on the playground and she thought the other class had to go in but they didn't (I am so glad that was the low point!! We can handle that.) She knew 5 girls names from her class but had absolutely no idea what the boy who sat next to her was called. She still loves her teacher and is glad she gets to go back tomorrow.
This was a day I had earmarked since I held my baby in the hospital and I am so thrilled to put it down as a success. I am grateful to the teachers who are understanding about how precious these kids are to us and I am so proud of Brae for really doing her best today. I am guessing not each morning will go smoothly or each day will be quite so nice but if this is how we started I couldn't have hoped for better.