First day of school

Monday, August 18, 2008

Now this was traumatic - well, at least it was for me.
We had Riley’s Kindergarten orientation last week, and all walked over to the school to meet her teacher and drop off school supplies. After a “scavenger hunt” with Riley in her classroom, the kids wend on a tour of the school and the parents stayed back to go over rules and get the supplies situated. All the crayons (3 boxes) and markers (one box) and glue (2 bottles and 4 sticks) had to be sorted (and all the blue-violets, and yellow-oranges and orange-yellows and indigoes removed) and placed into Riley’s cubby and various bins around the classroom. This whole activity was remarkably stressfull - and not only for me, many of the other parents were dealing with similar stress of trying to get the correct forms filled our, checks made out, scissors labeled and then all the unwanted and confusing colors packaged back up to be taken home. (Although I distinctly remember being able to understand the logic of orange-yellow, yellow-orange and red-orange when I was her age)
Having survived that, we ventured home. This weekend was a flurry of getting her backpack organized, lunches planned (there are apparently random hamburger days at school regardless of what the school lunch menu proposes, hence, Riley will be bringing her lunch daily), and outfits for the week laid out. After the first day of school, Kindergarteners all dress in the same color for the next week. And although I was initially dismayed to see all these colors of clothing that Riley owns NONE of (Yellow? Blue? Green? And not a one of these color days was PINK! That all she owns!), I the saw it as a much needed impetus to get Riley to wear other colors.
So this morning, Brian took Jackson to school, and I got Riley all combed and washed and fed for her big first day. She did very well, although I got lost finding her classroom. (Those Kindergarten parents - you can spot them a mile away!). I even managed to leave the classroom without completely breaking down in sobs. And Brian and I were only reprimanded once for exciting the school in an erroneous pattern.... this will be quite a learning experience for ALL of us!