Eleanore's First Day Of Kindergarten

Today was a very important day. One for our family history book.

Our lives changed today.

Big time.


We woke up bright and early this morning, the same way that we have been for the past 2 weeks. Only today was different. Today was the real deal.

Today, Eleanore started Kindergarten.



Yep, shes a Jet. ...and how cool is it that there is an actual airplane in front of her school?

We got there a little bit early, just in case there was some uncertainty or nervousness from the star pupil. Shes never been away from us, after all.



While waiting for the doors to open, and the other students to arrive, we found a fun pyramid thing in front of the main entrance to climb.

And we also found some friends.



Elie ran into her friend Ryan, so together they walked down the hallway to their classroom, stopping along the way to play with hallway decor and make funny faces while wearing silly cat shirts.



When we got to room number 8, there we found a cozy little seat with an Elie name tag and a cute little tub of play dough.



Now keep in mind- we don't do playdough here in the house, so this was pretty much like Christmas.

"You don't do playdough?! What?!"

Its not that we're really lame parents, even though I guess we kind of are then, its that play dough is a gluten party, and this house is wheat free.

I know, I know, you can make gluten free play dough with rice flour or whatever, and we have before, the peanut butter kind, but- its just not anything that we've kept around. Shame on me.

But so anyways- Elie has her playdough, and she was content.



I somehow snuck in a photo or 2 before losing all contact with my little school zombie.

The more she got into her play dough, the more I could see that I was no longer needed. So I took a few steps back, and took my camera on a quick tour of my immediate surroundings before the teacher kicked me out. I was the annoying lingering Mom that should have left half an hour ago.



A tired baby sister sitting alone near the wall. ABC's and 123's. A projection screen with instructions for the parents, which I didn't end up reading until I got home and saw them on my tiny camera screen (sorry Elie, for forgetting to sign in your lunch box!).



Ok, but just one more of my once-was-baby before I go.

K. There. I'm done.
Fine.



And did I mention that shes got a freakin' airplane in front of her school? Becaaaauuuse-

yeah.

So Charlie and Evelyn and I walked home alone, leaving big sister behind us with all of her new classmates and their song singing and project playing. It wasn't until we walked in the front door of the house, that I realized how lost I was.

...so um... what do we do now? ...do you want, food? do we eat now? Or...

Fast forward through a play date for Charlie and Evelyn, and a lunch date for me, and before we knew it- the whole house was swept, the babies were napped, and we were on our way back down to Dyess Elementary to pick up our missing puzzle piece.

I won't go into awful details about the sunburns on the back of my legs, but lets just say that, tomorrow we'll be armed with sunblock, the stroller, and hats. 45 minutes in the brutal triple digits took hours to recover from. Who knew that a walk from the car to the classroom would have freckled us all in heat rash and knocked us flat on our asses.



But at the end of the day, our strong willed little princess came out of the hallway smiling, singing songs about sharks and fishes, repeating cute lil' sayings like "criss cross applesauce", and explaining to me allll about the squares on the carpet that they sit in, allll about how she has to stop eating her snack when the teacher tells her to, and alllll about being a grape/celery/carrot in gym class.

There are no words, to describe how proud of her I was today.

I'll remember your first day of school forever, Miss Eleanore. And I hope you will too.