The Very First First Day of School

I just got home from dropping Kate off at her first day of preschool. And for those of you who were wondering, it was definitely more traumatic for me!

Let’s go back to last night… after dinner, we got a bath, jammies on, etc. and Kate watched a little bit of the Disney Channel while I laid out everything we’d need for the morning. I have to admit I got a little teary-eyed as I set out her first-day-of-school outfit and her new shoes, and filled her backpack with the random items we were instructed to bring. (As an aside, let me tell you what I mean by random. Here’s the list: glue, paper towels, baby wipes and Lysol. Um, ok.)

After a fairly uneventful bedtime, I tried to go to bed myself, but I couldn’t sleep. That is very unusual for me. I can generally sleep just about anytime, anywhere. I have been known to doze off at stop lights. So this did not bode well. At one point I turned to Andy and asked him if we had any bread. He was like, “Um, yes, we have bread [you weirdo]. Why [are you being so random]?” I told him that I was worried about Kate having a nutritious breakfast.

I tossed and turned, and kept worrying that I was forgetting something. At around midnight, I had to stop myself from turning on the lights and rummaging through my nightstand to find the preschool forms that I was certain I had forgotten to fill out and return to the teacher. I was about 98% sure we were going to get there in the morning and there would be no cubby with Kate’s name on it, no chair for her to sit in… I could just hear the teacher say, “You didn’t return the forms, so we figured Kate wasn’t going to come. Now the class is full and Kate can’t go to preschool and she’s never going to learn to sit still or read or do long division.” In fact, I was so sure that something disastrous like this was going to happen that I had already figured out a title for the post I’d write detailing it all – “The First Day of School and Why I Suck as a Mother.” I’ll have to keep that one in my back pocket, though, because I’m fairly certain it will be useful in the future.

Anyway, I finally managed to get to sleep, but about 3:30 a.m. I woke up my husband and told him that I had messed everything up because when I registered Kate for kindergarten (that’s right, kindergarten), we were living in our old house and then we moved and I forgot to tell the teachers and now she was signed up for the wrong elementary school. I was so confused and out of it that I don’t even know how he responded to my crazy ramblings.

After a fitful night of sleeping, it was time to get up and get going. Andy had to leave early, as it was his first day of school, too. Kate woke up around 7:30 and watched Barney while I dried my hair. She wanted Froot Loops for (a not-so-nutritious) breakfast, but we didn’t have time to argue, so we both downed a bowl. After she got dressed and ready to go, I put her little backpack on her and tried to take the ceremonial first-day-of-school picture by the front door, but she had no interest in just standing there looking pretty, so the pictures I took were “action shots” of her spinning around in circles.

School starts at 8:30. I wanted to leave by 8:00 just to be on the safe side. We ended up leaving at 8:05, which had me a little worried. I’m not sure what I was thinking, though… she is not going to preschool in another state. We rolled in at exactly 8:11. We were, uh, the first ones there.

When we got in, the teachers were expecting her. Her name hung above a cubby. Apparently I had in fact turned in all the necessary paperwork. My mug shot was not hanging on the bulletin board. I’m actually still kind of surprised by that.

As the head teacher was showing us around, she turned to Kate and said “What did you have for breakfast this morning?” and I shouted out “Cereal!” before Kate had the opportunity to tell her exactly what kind of cereal it was.

I hung around for a few minutes, waiting on the other kids to get there. Kate was a little clingy for a while but eventually wandered off to play, although I was under strict instructions to stay until her best buddy, Noah, got there. Once Noah arrived and his dad and I took pictures of the two of them together (note to self: file those away for the slide show at their wedding reception), they ran off together and didn’t look back.

That’s probably how it’s going to be from now on, isn’t it? Her running off and not looking back. I just hope she realizes, though, that if she ever does want to look back, even for a second, I’ll be there waiting. Worrying neurotically, but waiting.