Today was Wesley's first day of kindergarten. We have been talking up this event for the entire summer, and he has shown varying degrees of excitement about the prospect of spending the day away from his mommy, his legos, and his Wii. But once Wesley met a few of his classmates at a "popsicle social" on Wednesday evening, he found a shared love for Star Wars with several other boys, and he knew everything would be just fine. We discussed the drop-off procedure for school, and he insisted that it would be fine for me to just drop him at the curb on the first day. When I said I would go ahead and walk him in for at least the first or second day, he agreed to the first day, but figured he could take it from there. Last night at bedtime, he said he wished kindergarten was starting right then. Promptly at 6:15am, he came to my room completely dressed, including a belt and shoes (which he tied!). Since I wasn't sure how long the commute would take with traffic, we left early and arrived 25 minutes before the school doors even opened (perhaps I will adjust the departure time?).
When we went to Ms. Brandon's kindergarten room, he signed his name on the sign-in sheet (very cute), Ms. Brandon (sweet, young teacher) took our picture, and we found his locker to put away his empty backpack. He found a seat at the table and began reading one of the books that were laid out. After a few minutes, he looked up at me and said, "Mommy, shouldn't you go now?" He showed one brief moment of uncertainty as I was leaving, but no tears were shed by either party.
When I picked him up--which, I will say, was a traffic pattern that was nothing short of a three ring circus!--he got in the car and said that we needed to go home (25 min. away) before lunch (5 min. away) because he was SO thirsty! I asked him to describe his day in one word, and he said "AWESOME!" Though many details of the day escaped him (almost certainly due to the dehydration), he did remember that he made four friends, had something delicious to drink during snack time, and was quiet during "zero zone." However, his favorite part was the class trip to the restrooms! Before we headed home, we enjoyed a celebratory lunch at Nashville's semi-historic Pancake Pantry with our friend Sharon. After we had filled ourselves with pancakey goodness, we returned home for naps, legos, and Wii. As it turns out, kindergarten is pretty awesome after all!
