1st day of school

Emily started 1st grade yesterday. Hard to believe my baby girl is a FIRST GRADER. I'd like to know where the time goes, quite frankly!


She spent most of the summer ENJOYING summer, yet anxiously awaiting the beginning first grade and being able to see her friends on a more regular basis. She knows it's a big deal that she's not one of the "little kids" of the school anymore now that she's graduated Kindergarten, and it's been an exciting thing for her. She spent many days of her summer discussing what teacher she wanted, who she hoped would be in her class, what she thought first grade would be like, etc...

On meet the teacher day, she was thrilled to discover she got one of the two teachers we were hoping for. Doubly excited that her new teacher is RIGHT NEXT DOOR to her old teacher, so she can pop in and say hello any ol' time she wants. HOWEVER, she and I were both very disappointed to find out that not only are none of her FRIENDS in class with her, neither are any of her acquaintances from last year!!! She went from being VERY excited about school, to being very apprehensive about school. It was frustating to see such a drastic change in my child literally from one second to the next. Makes me wonder how they go about choosing what child goes into what class that they don't take into consideration that it's helpful for a little girl to have SOMEONE familiar to lean on a bit in the first few days...

There is some good news here, though, because one of the little boys she went to preschool with for two years is in her class, and although they have never really been good friends, he's at least a familiar face (and I adore his mother!). There's also ONE boy from her last years' class, and according to her, he was the nicest boy in class last year, even if he IS a little naughty (her words!! and he's a bit of a class clown, so that's the naughty stuff she's talking about). AND one of her friends from dance class is in her 1st grade class. The girls are friendly in dance, but there's not the same social time at dance as one would have in class and at recess, so they don't know each all that well, but I'm THRILLED they'll have that chance to get to know each other better this year (and I really like HER mom as well!).

I spent the days since Meet the Teacher Day hyping Emily up about the three faces she knows in her class, and how much fun it will be to make NEW friends, and how she'll still get to see her old friends at recess and in the hallway, and some of them even ride her bus (and one of them lives in our neighborhood!). By the time we actually got to the first day of school, she was pretty excited to be going. Especially because it meant FINALLY getting to wear her new school clothes and shoes!!!

Her first day yesterday seems to have been a great success, and hopefully the trend continues throughout the year!

Before you go, look at what a teeny lil' munchkin she was on her first day of preschool in the 3-year-old program!


And then starting the 4-year-old programe:


1st day of Kindergarten:


And I'll add in this year's pic again so they're all in a row for you (LOL!):


And clearly we were taking that picture in a hurry because the door looks all funky and crooked (except, unless I'm totally crazy, Emily looks pretty straight!)