First Day of School

I'm officially old. The kid went to school. She started off the day like a typical school aged child. (Half slung out of her bed, drool covered pillow, lots of mumbling when I woke her up-obviously too early.) Baby was our (obvious) first topic of conversation.

"Good morning Pumkin! Do you know what today is?"
*rubbing eyes* "What?"
"Where do you go today?"
"School." *yawn*
"Are you excited?"
*flatline* "Yeah."

I could barely hold the giggles. She sounded like she'd done this a million times. I asked her if she was sure she was excited and she very flatly insisted. Then came a final attempt at saving her relationship with her best friend.

"Can I take baby?"
"Honey, we already talked about that. Where does baby have to stay?"
"In my backpack. Why does School not let us have our babies?"

And so it begins. I wanted to tell her that school was The Man and to get used to it.

We went on downstairs to eat oats and watch part of a Veggie Tale. I was very unsure about how we were going to get ready in time, because she is slower than a sleeping turtle. She also still needed a bath because she insisted on waiting till morning to take one so we could fix her hair. Teenhood is going to kill me. I rushed some oats down her face, bathed her so quickly that I almost drowned her without even noticing and stuffed her into her dress. We ran downstairs to fix her hair and of course I got the brush stuck in it while we were working on that. "Oh gee!" I thought. "PERFECT! I hope we're late the very first day!" We can just barely afford the school she's going to, and I'm already worried about stupid things that don't matter. (Like her walmart backpack hanging in a row with everyone's LL Bean personalized backpacks...) I don't need to look dumb running in late also.

We made it (fixed hair, pictures, and all) to the parking lot with ten minutes to spare. (Woot!) I parked, sighed, and relaxed into my seat. Then I started feeling kind of closed in. I looked to my left. Navigator. I looked to my right. Escalade. That's funny, I pulled in between the two biggest cars here and my car is so tiny. I looked out the windshield at the row in front of me. Honda minivan. Yukon. Town and Country. Escalade. Honda Minivan. Honda minivan. Navigator. Oh! A car! Oh...BMW. Town and Country. BMW. Oh well. At least my car is from Germany. Sucks for Brandon when he has to drop her off in his $700 station wagon that has a primer gray hood.

I grabbed the kid and stuffed her into her WalMart backpack and headed for the door. On the way across the parking lot, I noticed that everyone had taken the day off from doctoring and lawyering and brought the whole family to the first day of school in their sunday clothes. Crap. I needed a memo for that. Here I am in my running clothes without my husband in a VW. Unexpected failure.

Despite all my worries, she had a fantastic first day. (Apparently kids that young aren't ashamed of WalMart backpacks yet.) She didn't stop talking about it all night and or all day Thursday. She was very dissapointed when she didn't get to go on Thursday. Friday morning I woke her up and this is what I got:

"It's time to go to school again!"
Rolls over and sighs "That's ok, Mommy. I don't really feel like going. I'll just stay here today."
Excuse me?! Are you a senior in College?! "Um...well baby, that's not really a choice. Besides, I thought you liked school?"
"I did. It was fun. But I don't need to go anymore." Riiiiiight...

I think we exhausted every spectrum of feelings toward school in a 48 hour period. I hope she sticks close to the "love it" end!