Sarah awoke early on August 6, 2007 and waited anxiously in bed for her new Tinkerbell alarm clock to go off. Everyone was excited on this extraordinarily humid Monday morning. Little sister Kate was up and watching Little Bear in our bed, I was up getting dressed - and dad happened to be walking by Sarah's door when her alarm finally rang. He was granted entry into the princesses sanctuary and allowed to help her get dressed for her first day of kindergarten. Kate and I heard Sarah stirring and ran to her room - she shut the door and said "Please wait in the hall until I'm done getting dressed, so I can make my debut!" A few moments later our beautiful Sarah emerged in her navy jumper, white polo and matching white socks brainstorming on hair-do's for her big day. She ended up with a top-ponytail finished with blue and white butterflies. Before going downstairs, Sarah received a brand new charm for her charm bracelet, her first day of school goody, which has been our tradition for the last two years. Kate won't start school until next week but she received her charm bracelet and her first charm, a little monkey. Both girls also got rockstar guitar barrettes.
Then we all went downstairs and Sarah put on her new mary jane sneakers (because Monday is a PE day) and she was all set. She didn't really want to eat breakfast but she managed to get some berries down , play barbies with little sister and reluctantly take a few pictures. Dad had a meeting first thing so he had to leave, but Amanda came early so she, Kate and I all drove Sarah to her first day of school.
Sarah was not quite sure what to expect and was a bit preoccupied with the idea that Kate might change her Barbie's clothes while she was at school - but once she saw her teacher Miss Yeagley she got excited. We found the spot where she can stash her backpack and where she'll line up each morning. She ran around the playground for a few minutes jabbering about Kate playing with her things. Watching Sarah run around, Miss Yeagley said "Sarah has personality doesn't she??" I nodded. Then Sarah came running over to tell Miss Yeagley she'd lost her name tag. To which Miss Yeagley replied: "Don't worry Sarah, I won't forget you!!" Alright!!! I think to myself - her teacher likes her . . . I can go now.
I snapped a few pictures on playground - and slowly walked away. What a bittersweet moment. It's so wonderful to see my daughter happy and able to jump into a new situation with both feet as well as she did - but it sure was hard to let her go. What if she didn't follow the rules? What if she got tired and grumpy and snapped at another child or wouldn't share? What if she couldn't open her juicebox at lunch? Would she be confused and try to buy lunch? In preschool parents stayed the whole first day . . . part of me wanted to think the Sarah wasn't ready for all this - but in reality it was me, who wasn't ready to let her go.
That afternoon, Kate and I ventured back to Imagine West Gilbert to get our kindergartner. What a wonderful experience. They really have the system down - a teacher with a walkie talkie walks past all the cars and reads the signs in our car windows (with the teachers and child's names) a few minutes later, here come Miss Yeagley holding Sarah's hand. She puts her in the car, buckles her in - if necessary - and off we go. Miss Yeagley gave me a thumbs up and said "It was a great first day!" [Whew!!!]
On the way home Sarah told me little bits about her day. Everything was fine at lunch. But one girl - Nimo said she HATED Sarah. My heart sank but then Sarah said "I just told her that was a rude thing to say and I'm going to play with someone else now." Oh my gosh, she really had been listening all those times we talked about how to respond when other people are rude or mean. Go Sarah!! I heard about Sy - who got in trouble a few times, and Jesse who thought Sarah looked pretty. She was also really excited to have PE and lunch with her friend Erika who she knows from preschool.
Wow, we survived day one. It was a great day!!
P.S. I must confess that I failed to charge the camera for this morning. Why would I - geez, the battery lasts like four months. Well, go figure it was down to ZERO when I wanted to take pictures of Sarah making her debut from her room. Panic set in at the thought of missing these pictures. But as bad as it may be for the life of the battery, I managed to charge it for 15 minutes while Sarah had breakfast. It was enough to snap pictures all morning. Yay.
What is it with me and that camera???
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