Elizabeth's First day of kindergarten!

Yesterday was a big day - Elizabeth started kindergarten. We met her teacher the day before (very sweet, Elizabeth loved her) and had a popsicle in the park with some other kindergartners. While it is always bittersweet to send your baby off to big school, Elizabeth was very ready to start.






The carpool line is always a nightmare at the beginning of the school year. I guess it's because of the kindergartners, or maybe we've all forgotten the drill over the summer. So even though we got to school a good 15 minutes early, we sat parked in the carpool line, and Jacob was getting more and more nervous as the clocked ticked closer to the first bell. I finally told the kids that I'd let them bail when we got to the big tree (which is a little closer to the school). You are technically not supposed to let the kids out of the car until you are in front of the building, but there is really no safety reason for that -- they walk onto the same sidewalk no matter when they get out -- and it was clear to me that breaking the "be on time for school" rule would be much more distressing to Jacob than the "don't get out of the car until you are in front of the building" rule -- and since we were clearly going to have to break one or the other, I let the kids out. I had to swallow hard as I watched Elizabeth walk off (she suddenly looked tiny under her huge backpack!), but boy, they looked so cute and happy as they marched towards school that it was really hard to feel anything but pride and joy.