Well, it happened. Sophie went off today for her very first day of kindergarten.  No surprise, but it was more traumatic for me than for her.  Sending your little girl off to a big (for her and us) school ON A BUS is kind of scary! But, as you’ll see… she loved every minute of it! We had an earlier-than-usual start after a summer of Loafie getting to sleep in until after 8AM, but no more…we needed to be at the bus stop at 8:15!  Just 1/2 a block away from our house, so it’s easy to get to, and once she got on her bus, I drove up to her school, Peter Kirk Elementary, to meet her off the bus and go into the classroom with her to “hand her off” to her teacher, Mrs. Smajic (pronounced “smytch”.)  She sorted her school supplies into the various bins, then found her table with the seat with her name at it and proceeded to start coloring a picture.  Then we all said the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.  I had forgotten all about that… it was neat to do it with Sophie. And, suddenly, it was time for me to go. Ulp, this was when I got the pit in my stomach.  I said goodbye to her and her response was “Mommy! Wait!!  ….What about my headphones?  Do I need them today?” (They were listed on the supply list but ended up being non-essential until later in the year, so I was taking them home.)  Right. So I guess I’ll be going now.  Out to the hallway to leave and boy did I get my sunglasses on fast so no one would see my tears.  Headed off for home where Maxie and I played and basically just waited for the time when 3 hours later Sophie would be coming back home on the bus especially for the 1/2 day kindergarten kids from our neighborhood. What luxury. And also, phew. She made it in one piece.  When she got off the bus, I asked her how her first day was, and can you guess what she said?

“It was AWESOME.”

She regaled me with various tidbits (the gingerbread man led them on a scavenger hunt around school, she skinned her knee at recess playing basketball, etc.) but overall had a great first day getting to know her school building, her teacher, and learning about some general “how-tos” at school.

So, please enjoy the slideshow below…clicking on the pictures will enlarge them and make the captions easier to read.  And by the way, Sophie is known at school as “Sophie L.” as there is another Sophie (Sophie H.).  I knew we shoulda named her Ursula!