We Survived The First Day of Kindergarten

 I have "We" in the title of the post, because I am including myself as having survived the whole day with minimal tears while he was at school.  The alarm went off at 6:00 this morning, but I was up around 5:45.  I woke Joshua up around 6:20 and I was a little nervous, because he is not the happiest person first thing in the morning, and pressuring him to hurry and something makes matters worse, but he did well with getting up and moving.  My nerves were all over the place, but I did my best to hide them.  When it was time for us to start loading up, he looked at me as he held his blankets and said "Mommy I am scared!"  I actually had to open the fridge and pretend to look for something while I tried to get myself under control, because I told myself not to cry in front of him.  Not because I dont like showing emotion, but it makes him nervous to see me cry and I didn't want that the first day.

 So we walked out the house around 7:15, took the famous first day of school pic, which he hammed it up for me!  We then loaded the car as a family of five and headed to take Joshua to school.  They can enter the school starting at 7:20, and we happen to be in walking distance, so it didn't take us that long to get there.  The front of the school was crowded!! Joshua squeezed my hand super tight, but I didn't mind, because at least he wanted to hold my hand( I know the day will come when he want, so I will take the circulation being cut off for now).  He seemed excited and kept smiling and jumping and giving me loads of hugs (sweet boy).

 After we walked in and signed into the office for our "vistor" tag, we walked to the cafeteria, this is where I think we both began to feel the reality of what was about to happen.  His table with class and teacher was right when we walked in.  We took 3 steps in and he froze.  Like his feet had glue on the bottom and he would move.  I knelt down and said it was going to be ok, we needed to go say hello to Miss Zuris, and sit down.  He still didn't move.  Finally, Dan was able to coax him forward.  He hid behind me the whole time, but eventually sat down.  His school provides breakfast for all the kids, so, even though he had already eaten breakfast at home, he chose to have some orange juice while he waited for the bell to ring. 

 Finally the moment came where we had to say goodbye.  I gave him a hug, ok I gave him like 3 long hugs, and then had to walk away because the water works started.  Dan assured me that when he looked back, Joshua was fine and drinking his orange juice.  The look in the picture below was what we got when we told him it was time for us to go and he had to stay all by himself.  Say What?!?!

I went on about my day, trying to keep myself busy, which wasn't too hard.  My schedule stays pretty full.  Joshua seemed to have a busy day as well(the class schedule looked busy, but fun).  2:30 couldn't come fast enough.  The carpool lane drove me absolutely insane.  I was the 6th car in line, and it was so chaotic that I saw Joshua come out, but I couldn't get out to get him.  So I waited and waited.  It was so hard seeing him sit there, but not be able to get him.  But, rules are rules and all that matters in the end is that I got him.  His teacher finally saw me waving and brought him to the car.  She told me that he had a great day.  When I asked him, he told me he didn't want to talk.  I was expecting that.  I am sure his brain was buzzing from everything that he had done today.  He finally told Dan that he had such a fun time on his first day of Kinder!  Tomorrow will be a whole new day, with me dropping off all by myself, and I think I will park and wait out front instead of sitting in the never ending carpool line.  So, I only cried the one time today, pretty proud of myself for that.  Joshua didn't cry or meltdown at all either!  So, I call that a win for everyone.  YAY for surviving the first day of school!!!