First day of kindergarten

Jack’s first day of kindergarten was today.  As I’d mentioned before, in the preceding days, he had expressed that he was a little nervous and scared about going.  I was feeling pretty emotional about it myself.

Jack wanted to have another sleepover the night before his big day, so I told him he could.  At around 2:30, I felt myself getting kicked and pushed.  Jack was rolling all over the bed.  I asked him if he was awake, and he was…just barely.  He said that he couldn’t sleep.  I asked him if he was thinking about anything, if that’s why he couldn’t sleep.  He said no, he just couldn’t get comfortable.  I asked him if he wanted to go back to his room.  He said no. 

After about an hour of fidgeting and rolling all over the place, when no one was getting any asleep, Jack told me, “I’m going to go back to my room.  If it doesn’t work out, I’ll come back.”  Even half-asleep, that gave me a little chuckle.

He must have fallen asleep just fine, because he didn’t ever come back.  My alarm woke me up at 6:27 AM, and I went into Jack’s room to wake him up.

I really hope that I’m as organized in subsequent days as I was yesterday.  His outfit was all laid out for him, and most of his lunch had been prepared ahead of time.  I made him his favorite breakfast of Eggo waffles with whipped cream, which he ate while I got the rest of his school things together.  We took a couple of pictures of him with his “My 1^st Day of Kindergarten” sign, and then it was time to be off.

We left the house at 6:57 AM, and we arrived at school’s overflow parking lot at 7:13 AM.  It took us five minutes to walk to school.  Jack’s school has morning assembly every day at 7:30, when the entire school gathers for announcements and to say the pledge of allegiance.  Afterward, the classes dispersed to their respective rooms.

It was a bit of a scramble this first day, because we didn’t realize that Jack’s class starts off in his English teacher’s class, not his normal classroom.  Once we found where we were supposed to be, he lined up with his classmates.  They all walked into the class, and Jack’s first day of kindergarten was officially underway.

I admit there were times throughout the morning when I was feeling a little weepy, although neither of us shed any actual tears.  It was hard to walk away.  I did take one last little peek in the window before I left.  Jack was sitting calmly on the rug, and the little boy beside him was crying.

Tom had stayed home with Violet while I dropped Jack off.  She was still sleeping when I came home.  I got a little misty again when she woke up and asked, “Where’s Jack?” first thing as always.  But she and I had a great day playing with friends, which was a great distraction.

When we went to pick Jack up in his classroom, he had a big smile on his face

“Mommy,” he said, “I really like school!”

“When is it turn for me?” demanded Violet.

I asked him about his day.  True to form, he was pretty short on details.  The one thing that seemed to make the biggest impression on him is that the teacher has a behavioral management system that is based on the colors of the rainbow.  The kids start off on yellow (good) for the day.  They can either go down to orange (bad) or red (worst) or up to green (really good) or, strangely, to pink (excellent).  The conspiracy theorist in me wonders why the color that really should have been blue was changed to pink, especially considering that Jack told me it was a little girl who earned the first pink that day.  One boy earned an orange, which also made a big impression on Jack.  That is the one boy whose name Jack definitely knows.  Jack himself earned a green his first day, which is great.  But he has already told me that he aspires to earn as many pinks as he can.  Sounds good to me.

Tomorrow is Wednesday, which is Jack’s school’s short day.  I hope he comes home as happy tomorrow as he did today.