First Day 2009

Being a mom that works outside of the house, one gives up a few things. To date, the hardest thing to let go of is seeing these two beautiful faces off to their perspective first days of school. I gently pulled my first grader out of bed at 6:30 so I could do her hair (did you get it done, you might be asking while looking at this photo?) before I left for work. She was feeling a bit anxious so you will notice the necklace around her neck. This is a peace medallion that I made about 20 years ago with a medicine bag attached to the back of it. Standard first grade fare for the child of a hippie:)

She was crying as I walked out the door. Not even close to being easy. Meanwhile, the third grader is feeling so good that I forget to write a note to his teacher reminding her that he is in aftercare today. More on that later. I plead with my husband to take back to school photos..for the blog, for their scrapbooks, for posterity. What I forget to tell him is that the key component in a back to school shot is not the fleece jacket but the Look-how-much-my-mom-loves-me-she-bought-me-this-fabulous-dress shot. He being kind of a Zen guy without all the posturing just shoots them in the moment. He emails me at work telling me all is well. I relax. Cut to the end of the day as I round the corner to the playground to pick up Emma:
"Emma, where is your dress?" Embarrased giggles from the aftercare staff, unprintable thoughts about what I will do to my husband if he, as it suspiciously looks like, forgot to put a dress on my baby...

"It's in my backpack"...."Why?"......"I put it there"....."Why?"...."Mom, we had gym and I couldn't move."
Husband saved. Cut to the next aftercare program to pick up my son:

"How was the day?"....."It was great except I tried to walk home". Remember the note I forgot to write because I was hyper-focusing on the first grader's anxiety? My fault, all my fault.
Thank you Mr. Wilson for walking him back to school. "Mom, I hope it's OK but I cried a little bit today when you weren't there"

Son, I hope it's OK because I cried a little tonight too. I love you guys so much but I can't keep your clothes on you once you get to school and I can't always anticipate when signals are going to get crossed and you will end up on the wrong path. I can promise to be ever so grateful when we end up back together at the end of the day.