First day

Here is our proud kindergartener.

And one with her brother and sister. Had to be quick to get Aubrey in there.

Kari was ready bright and early, excited for her first day. And I was teary. I realized last night as I was reading the school's parent handbook that wasn't going to be able to walk her into her classroom, and that upset me. Because of parking/bus logistics, the school asks parents to just pull up to the curb, drop kids off, and pull on out (heartless, don't you think?). When I pulled up, the principal was standing there waiting to greet students and send them to where they need to go, so it wasn't as if I was just leaving her standing on the sidewalk alone, but it still just didn't feel right. Kari hopped out, and after a cheerful wave and a happy"good-bye, Mom!" I pulled away from the school and sobbed all the way home--a blubbering mess. Had to have a quick recovery, though, because we had an important mission to accomplish. We had to find a new backpack for Kari. This morning we discovered a huge gaping hole near the bottom (not sure how that happened but very inconvenient on the first day of school). I safety pinned it with a promise to remedy the situation while she was gone. What could have been an impossible mission (have you seen the stores this week? No more back-to-school. It's all about Halloween now.) turned out to be not so bad. We didn't find a princess backpack like she requested, but we did find a pretty blue one that Joel said Kari would like. And it was on clearance--even better! Kari was just as happy when we picked her up as she had been when we dropped her off. She had a great morning and can't wait to go back. Oh, and she loves the new backpack.

Today was all about Kari, but I'm really looking forward to having some time with just Joel and Aubrey at home. I promised them we wouldn't run errands all morning like we did today. They did great, but it wasn't exactly the fun, special morning I intended it to be.