Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Welcome to Kindergarten, Tink!

Tink started kindergarten today.

I know.

I'll give you a minute as you work through the 
feelings of disbelief, sadness, and shock.  

I don't know how he got this old, either.

He has looked forward to this day forever.

And by "forever", what I mean is since last summer.  

It wasn't but a day or two after his fourth birthday that he looked at me and said, "Mommy, on my next birthday I am going to be five and then I'm going to kindergarten."

Whoa, kid. 
Slow it down.  

This is happening too fast for Mama as it is.
No need to rush things.

We got up this morning, got dressed, and worked on finishing filling out all the papers he needed to bring back to school for his first day.  

There was one page for Tink to sign where he agreed to do his best each day.

Luckily, The Hubs was on his daddy game and got a picture because 
I was busy filling out the other paperwork.


(Notice, he is a lefty like his mama.  Love.)

Once everything was filled out, his backpack was stuffed with the required change of clothes & paperwork, and we'd collected the insanely large bag of required school supplies, we were ready to head to school.

You know we had to stop for pictures before we went, though.  

Luckily, AJ was willing to come over and be the official photographer this morning so 
The Hubs and I could both get a picture with the big kid, totally focus on him as he started his first day, and not have to worry about taking pictures.  

It was too bad Goose didn't get the memo about standing nicely for photos.

I wish I could explain how hard it is to get that kid to stand still and smile at the camera.  

If he ever does, it is an accident.  

He tries his hardest to avoid doing what we ask him to do.

In fact, it works much nicer to tell him in a very firm voice 
to NOT look at the camera and to most definitely NOT smile.

Reverse psychology.  
Works (almost) every time.

I won't bore you with the details. 
I'll just give you the pictures.  




Eh, one out of three with everyone looking isn't too bad.

We also tried to get pictures of Tink and Goose together. 

I'm considering putting these together as a flipbook.  
I'm sure you can envision this going down. 

I think we were one photo away from Goose 
turning around and decking the kindergartener.





We also tried to get some pictures of the big kid by himself.
Evidently, since he is going to be in the Turtle Class, he 
thought that meant he had to be a turtle for his pictures.
Why can't it just be easy?!






Finally.
We got a normal one.


We had to be sure we got a picture of Sully, too.  :)


It took seemingly FOREVER, but we were finally off to school.
We live about two minutes away, so it didn't take long to get there.
This guy was pretty excited during the short ride.


We made it to school and pulled into the drop-off line.  
Parents aren't allowed to get out with them.
They have a teacher waiting to get them out of the car and then teachers inside to take them to breakfast or the playground or wherever they need to be.

As I am sure you can guess, this mama wasn't going to 
just toss her kid out of the car and take off.  
Yeah, we broke the rules within the first 30 seconds of being at school.
But we needed yet another first day picture.


Tink was set to go.

I tried to hand him that enormous bag of supplies to take in with him, but it 
was so heavy he just kept bouncing it along the sidewalk.  
I asked if I could carry it in for him and 
I got the OK from the teacher working drop-off.

We walked up to the gym door and were greeted by another teacher. 
She looked at Tink and said, "Hi! Are you a turtle?!"

He nodded his head, she grabbed the bag from me, and said to 
him, "Let's go!  I know exactly where your classroom is!"

And they took off across the gym.  

I started to head back to the car.

Then, I realized I didn't get to say goodbye.
  
I quickly turned back and started to holler at him, but they were already 
across the gym and walking through the door to the hallway.

Cue tears from Mama.

He didn't ever look back.
He was SO excited to start his first day.
He was so brave and so big and totally didn't need me.

I am quite obviously having a much harder time with all this than he is. 

And I am so sad that I didn't get to give him hugs...
 and kisses...
 and tell him I love him...
 and to have a great day.

But I am sure he will anyway.

I'm super proud of my big kid.  

I am counting down the minutes until I get to pick him 
up from school and hear all about his day.

And, in Tink's world, that means I will ask what he did today 
and he will most likely answer with, "I not know." 

Guess I am going to have to volunteer in his classroom 
at every opportunity I get just so I know what he does all day.  ;)