After almost 11 years of having a child at home with me, my baby started Kindergarten today. Tanner started "big" school Friday at Parkway Elementary School. He will be there with Anna this year, who is in the 3rd grade, and he was pretty excited. For years, the poor child has been dragged up to Parkway constantly for different things, but this time, it was all for him.
It wasn't hard to wake him up. I walked by his room and said "Taaanner, it's time to get up" and kept going. I was in the kitchen and less than 5 minutes later, he came in there completely dressed (He had picked out his clothes himself the night before)! It was so funny! He was ready to go!
The "tradition" in our family on the first day of school is we all load up and drop the kids off together. When we got to Parkway, I had already decided we would take Anna to her room first, then Tanner, because I would need to make a quick, hopefully unseen, exit. We all bounded in and walked Anna down to Mrs. Jackson's 3rd grade class and said our goodbyes and took our mandatory pictures. Then the long walk to the opposite end of the school to Mrs. Farned's Kindergarten class. We had already passed several teary-eyed moms and that didn't help me any. We got to Mrs. Farned's room and walked in with Tanner. He put his backpack in his cubby and went to find his seat. His friend, Katelyn McCoy, is in his class this year, but she wasn't there yet, so he had yet to see a familiar face. Although he didn't know anyone, Tanner was a trooper. He sat in his seat and posed for a picture for his crazy mother, who was trying her best not to fall apart. After a hug, kiss and "I love you", me, Terry and Avery dashed out the door. Thankfully, the door to the outside is right by Tanner's classroom, so as the tears started to come, we made it out of the building quickly.
Later, I went back up to Parkway to help with lunch in the cafeteria. Parents come help the Kindergarteners go through the lunch line, open milk cartons, etc. I saw Tanner then and he was having a good day. He already had a buddy, Dalton Hughes, and they were having some good conversations about their Wii games.
I picked Tanner and Anna up in carpool that afternoon and, after getting Avery at Milam, we headed home. The second "tradition" on the first day of KINDERGARTEN is the kindergartenee gets a surprise party. Aunt Paige started this when Avery first went to Kindergarten and we have continued it with Anna, now Tanner. I had made M&M cupcakes, decorated with streamers and gotten some cool (dollar tree) toys, so after yelling "SURPRISE!", we celebrated Tanner's first day of school!
Before school that day, I had told Tanner to remember everything so he could tell me all about it. Well, that didn't happen - he said he couldn't remember what they did! He did say that his favorite part of the day was recess. He was excited that he had climbed upside down on the monkey bars! Later on that night, though, he said, "Mama, I learned something new at school today. You want to know what it was?" Of course I did, and he replied "I learned how to balance playdough on my arm!" The great learning experiences of a 5 1/2 year old!! Priceless!
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