[8/8/11] Monday Memories: First Day of School Edition

Today is the first day of school, one of the fourteen "first days of school" that we've experienced in our family. Today is Parker's last first day of school for his K-12 education. Today is Kailen's first day of high school. For the sake of remembering, here's how all my kids' very first day of school went down:

Zach (August 1993): Zach was very ready to start school. Some people we asked for advice said it would be better to hold him back a year since he would be starting kindergarten a few days before turning 5, but we felt he was ready so we went ahead. And he did great! I think it was harder on me to send my first child out into the "world" than it was on him, and a few tears were shed as I walked away from his classroom. For the first few weeks I made sure his clothes were perfectly ironed each morning, but I got over that pretty quickly. :o)

Kamala (August 1996): Kam was also ready to start school. She'd been playing school with Parker almost as long as Parker had been alive. Kam's always been one of our more shy children so I was worried about how she'd do in a classroom where she knew no one, but that first day she walked right into her class and sat in her seat. No tears, from her anyway.

Parker (August 2000): As you can tell, Parker was not very happy to be going to school. He wanted to stay home with me. Unlike the other kids, Parker did not walk right into his classroom and sit down. No siree. I took him into his classroom and he clung to me and cried. John, who I'd thankfully had the foresight to ask to accompany us to school that morning, took him from me and he clung to John and cried. I stood outside the classroom, looking through the window where Parker couldn't see me, and cried. A few minutes later, Ms. Battersby, who I'm convinced is absolutely the most perfect Kindergarten teacher to ever teach Kindergarten, came and physically took Parker from John's arms and held him as he screamed for John to not leave him. I'm serious. That's how it went down. John left the classroom and took my hand and dragged led me away. And we could still hear Parker screaming for us to not leave him as we walked away. I felt like the most horrible mother ever to walk the earth for leaving my boy at school. A few hours later Ms. Battersby called to let us know that Parker was indeed still at school and was not still screaming. He'd settled in quite nicely and enjoyed the rest of the school year.

Kailen (August 2002): Kailen was thrilled to go to school. In fact, she'd begged to start school with Parker, or to even take his place when he started school. He offered to let her do so. Kailen walked right into her classroom and sat down. Like I said, she'd been ready to go to school like the "big" kids for years. I was the one having a hard time this first day of school because not only was my "baby" going to school, but Kam was starting middle school and Zach was starting high school. So John took the day off so he could keep me busy. Keeping busy wasn't really a problem since we were preparing to move to Arizona, but it was still was nice to have him home for the day. We packed and went to lunch. And yes, I did shed a few tears that day. (Zach is missing from the picture because he left for school much earlier than the other kids).

In a way it's sad that we'll only have 3 more first days of school before Kailen has her first college day of school.

And I'm pretty sure that day will also involve tears on my part.