First Day of Kindergarten

They day has come...Kindergarten. Eek!

Brooklyn started last Monday at Roger Bacon Academy, a charter school here in Leland. We'd been psyching her up for the previous few weeks, and she only had one little "panic attack". Driving home from Lowe's two days before school started she absolutely flipped. Hysterical sobbing and lots of "I don't want to!"'s. If any of you have read "The Kissing Hand," I took a concept out of there and drew a heart on her wrist for her to look at when she was scared or lonely. Worked like a charm.

And cool, calm and collected momma did pretty well. Except for the week before when thinking about school supplies, school lunches, school uniforms...and freaking out thinking I would be the worst Kindergarten parent in the history of Kindergarten parents. A few sleepless nights, and mornings and lots of midnight crying. At least I got it out of my system before the Big Day though!

She was so excited to get up and going. I went to get a photo of her and Sam said, "I want to be in the picture!!" and I said, "Sam, just wait. Let me get one of Brooklyn by herself." She says, "It's okay Mom, I can share my picture." Awww....they really are best friends.

I went and put my camera away, thinking I would be the only crazy parent with a camera and didn't want to embarrass my kid already. Doh. Every.Parent.There.Had.One. Oh well, at least my good friend Amy had hers.

This is Madison, Brooklyn's best bud since they met when we first moved here. It turned out they ended up in the same class! They sure are cute. She says they play Puppy at recess every day together.

Can you tell Brooklyn was a bit excited? And check out that campus in the background. It is seriously gorgeous. 50 acres of wooded campus. Awesome.

Classroom K-c! Miss Clifton's class!

Sam said at least 5 times before we left the campus, "Brooklyn's not in her chair." or "Brooklyn's not here." Every day this week he's said it less and less, but he says it at least 3 times a day still. It's been pretty nice having some Mommy-Sam time. We haven't had this much together time...ever. So, pretty awesome.

This is one of Sam's backpacks. He loves taking it everywhere. This was Brooklyn's first day of school. We came home and he went and found it and dumped his entire sock and undies drawer into one pocket and then squished as many shirts as he could into the big pocket. And yes, he thinks he's pretty Hot Stuff.




Sam drew me his first recognizable picture--a rocket!

And we do Marbleworks at least once a day, usually more. We also go to the park almost every morning. We take Izzy with us to drop Brooklyn off, then hit the park on the way home while it's cool out. It's a great way to kick off the morning.

I'm not sure who was more excited to pick Brooklyn up--me, Sam, or Izzy (seriously. The dog trashed the house while we were gone, which nearly never happens.). I'm pretty impressed with the drop-off/pick-up routine the school has. It still takes a big chunk of time to do it (they don't have a bus system, so it's an hour of driving time each day! Plus waiting in line...), but I like how fluid it is.

Anyways, the woman in the middle left (blue shirt w/ white dots) is Miss Clifton, bringing Brooklyn to the car. Miss Clifton is fresh out of college, but has Mrs. Brown (turquoise shirt on the far left) who has 9 years of experience at Charter Day to help her out.




Brooklyn was happy to see us too!

Then the kids come home and create this....

Brooklyn seems to enjoy Kindergarten. Every morning she goes right in and gets ready with a "See ya, Mom!" and even told me that instead of walking her in, I could just drop her off. She said the first day she had a bit of a tough time during quiet time, "But I only cried enough to use 2 tissues. I had you hugging me stuck in my head." Awww...

She was pretty stoked about her self-portrait though. She said on the way home, "I got my blue eyes, my school, my uniform, and EVEN my pigtails! I did a pretty good job." Definitely one of my favorites to date.



This week they were asked to put 5 things that represent them in their "Me Bag." Brooklyn chose:
- A book that she'd made from scratch including all of her favorite things to do art with (stamps, paints, markers, etc.)
- Izzy's harness that she likes to play Dogs with
- Chicken feathers
- Squash bugs (and some squash bug eggs) in a jar
-Her paleontology block that she got from her Aunt Corinne for her birthday (since she wants to be a paleontologist)

She was so excited to tell me that the kids said, "Wow!" and "Ewww!" And the thing that she said made her special was "I have my Daddy's eyes." So Russ was able to walk her in the last day and after Brooklyn introduced him to Miss Clifton, Miss Clifton says, "Brooklyn, you're right! You do have your Dad's eyes!" Brooklyn got a bit embarrassed, lol.

She's definitely a bit ahead of the game there, and she says she gets bored, but that she still likes it. I try to give her fun "challenges" like finding out the boy who sits next to her's favorite color. Or what that girl's name was who had all of those cool freckles. Or asking someone new to play Puppy on the playground. Then she comes up with challenges for me like jumping on the trampoline for 15 minutes with them. Pretty fun. All in all, I think Kindergarten is going to be a pretty good thing for everyone.