The First Day

Whew! What a relief to have made it through the first day of kindergarten.

Aaron had been feeling pretty nervous, but after attending his school's Open House on Monday, it put him much more at ease. By this morning he was just excited and ready to go. He had his lunch packed and his clothes picked out the night before. We were all fine until it was time to leave the house and we couldn't find William. He was behind the couch, legs crossed, head down, crying. After coaxing William into the van we were on our way in a heavy rain. I had planned to take my camera into the school to take pictures, but the rain freaked me out. I was thinking "I can't take my camera out into in the rain!" It didn't occur to me to put it in a bag...

Aaron's school was built in the early 1900's and is situated on a narrow, one way, brick street and it was jam-packed! David and William dropped us off at the front of the school and we rushed in. Aaron was greeted at the entrance and in the hallways by the principles, several teachers and staff before he even reached his classroom. He already knew where to go to get to his room. He was clutching my hand, but leading the way. In his classroom we put on his nametag, hung up his backpack and put away his lunch. He was thrilled to be greeted by an old friend from preschool. The whole time I was willing myself to not cry in front of him, even though the tears started as soon as we entered the building. I told him it was time for me to go, and after one hug I turned to walk away. He ran after me and held my arms and legs, so we had one more quick hug and more assurances, and I just turned around and walked out (as the teacher had directed me to do), stifling a sob and feeling like I might throw up. Who knew that leaving my first baby at kindergarten would bring such heartache?

I peeked back in and he was doing fine, already headed to play with a group of other kids. I knew he would be fine, of course. After dropping him off, William and I headed to the gym where I couldn't speak for almost two hours. Several people tried to say hi to me and all I could do was cry if I tried to respond. It's just unbelievable that we are at this phase of life already, a huge step in letting Aaron go out into the world. We passed the rest of the day very pleasantly at a friends house, eating comfort food for hours! Before I knew it, it was time to pick Aaron up.

As expected, he had a great day and thinks that "school is awesome!" He was exhausted though. It's wierd that he was gone for 7 hours but we could only get about 3 to 5 minutes worth of details out of him about his day. I'm hoping to learn more from him as the days go by. At bedtime, he expressed that his one disappointment was that his teacher didn't spend enough time with him today to teach him to read a book and "she didn't even write down a letter and ask me what it was." His expectations were a little high for the first day, but then again, everyone's been telling him that "you'll learn to read in kindergarten..."