First Day of the Big K

My baby started Kindergarten this week. It was hard to tell if she was excited about her first day or not, in as much as she is never fully coherent until around 10:00 a.m. and I leave for work at 6:55 a.m. I just sort of dress her and then prop her up on the couch. So, it’s the same now that school has started, but with the addition of a backpack attached to her shoulders. She is going to the same school as last year, and some of her friends are in her class (for 4K you can choose to send your child to any accredited center – it does not have to be your home school, so only a few of the kids from her 4K class are in her Kindergarten class). Not that she would care much if she didn’t know anyone. My outgoing child truly lives by that old “there are no strangers, just friends you haven’t met yet” adage.

Anyhow, we sent her off to Kindercare on the first day of school, where she was then bussed over to her elementary school. Her Princess Tiana backpack contained her lunch, a kitten folder, and a writing journal. What I’ve decided to do about lunch is to send food on days when there is not a meatless option, and to have her eat lunch at school on days when there is. I think it will work out to be approximately 50/50. I put $25.00 in a lunch fund to get us started. How fabulous it is that kids don’t have to carry cash to school these days. I remember losing my lunch money more than a few times. Of course, my youngest sister had our dad convinced that lunch was something like $5 a day, and I believe she collected enough to have a beer fund for her entire first year of college.

When I picked the kid up after her first day of school, I asked lots of questions in order to get a feel for how her first day as a big Kindergartner went. She seemed over it already ("we played at the park, we rested because teacher said we have to rest our bodies, we ate lunch"). All was well until I opened the backpack. Ugh. Now, this is one of those things that you would think you don’t need to spell out for a kid, but if you think that, you’d be wrong. It seems I never explicitly told her not to returned half-consumed food to her lunchbox. So, she ate half a container of Mott’s applesauce and put the rest of it (lidless, open plastic container) back in her lunchbox. Then she drank half of her Juicy Juice box and put that back in the box as well. So, I was met with a backpack full of leaking juice and applesauce. It got on the kitten folder and the writing journal, among other items. Noooooooo

I had to email her teacher on the very first day of school and request a new writing journal. I was able to salvage most of the 88 papers sent home on the first day, or at least I was able to read them before tossing them into the recycling bin. I have a feeling it’s gonna be a long year. Just 13 years until graduation!