Kids and What I Learned Today

Every major event in our child’s life is a big deal for us parents, we take pictures, make scrapbooks, blog – do everything we can to document these moments.    To them it is just another stepping stone.  Today, Tyler stepped into Kindergarten.

I hardly slept at all last night anticipating my little boy’s first day of Kindergarten. After we got the kids off to bed, I put together all of his school supplies, made sure his nap-sack was packed along with an extra set of cloths, verified that the check I wrote to put money on his lunch card was loaded on the lunch card, which it wasn’t so I put 3 dollars in his backpack along with a couple of snacks, put the car-line pickup card in both cars, put my camera next to the door, re-read the car pickup policy, and filled out all of the documentation before bed.

I woke up this morning with more zeal than I usually do.  I had two cups of coffee, showered, and dressed to impress.   Meanwhile, Ben (who gets ready in 5 minutes) helped the kids get dressed, set out milk and cereal, brush their teeth and hair and read some of his book while the kids watched Tom and Jerry.  Finally, after I was done, we were out the door.

We got to the school 15 minutes before class started so I could take some pictures, drop off his school supplies and just make sure he was ok.  It’s a big day!

His teacher greeted him at the door and ushered him into the classroom, deftly ignoring Mom with the big camera.

The room was a flurry of color, it literally made me pause at the door to take a breath at all the overwhelming color.

Tyler, though, followed the teacher inside and followed her directions.  The student, teacher interaction seemed like a whirlwind with no time for a sentimental Mom who was managing to get a few pictures of his first day at school. Everything was happening so fast to me I wanted to yell “slow down, take a breath, let me take a moment”.  The whole time, it was just a step for Tyler, no big deal.

What I learned today: This is the first of many stepping stones that I’ll watch my child take as he slowly moves toward being independent.  This is going to hurt.