Kindergarten!

I know. I'm an awful parent. It's taken me almost a full week to write about Will's first day of kindergarten. But what can I say? I'm really trying to take full advantage of the time that Will's at school and Laura's napping. I have to say that having this time in the afternoons is something that I will definitely get used to (and something that I'll never take for granted, ever again in my whole life).

Back to the topic at hand: Will and starting kindergarten. His first official day was last Thursday (his phase-in day, where he went with one-third of his class) and the entire class went starting on Monday. And I hate to say this, but it was kind of . . . anti-climactic. I was fully expecting to be way sadder than I was but it never really happened. I had a moment of "Crap! We're not really leaving him" panic when we were crossing the final street to the school but once we got closer and kids were everywhere and it was a little chaotic, I got over it pretty quickly.

Will, as expected, never thought twice about leaving us, but this comes as no surprise at all, seeing as this is the same kid who never batted an eyelash when we left him for preschool and who has stayed away from us for more than a week without so much as asking for us. We got him situated with his teacher, I gave him a hug and they went inside (we were running a little behind schedule) and that was that.

And I only took one picture at school (with my phone, no less):

So, four days later, he seems to genuinely love it. He's a huge fan of eating in the cafeteria and says that gym is his favorite class. I, on the other hand, admittedly spend a lot of my time here wondering if he's behaving, which is my primary concern with him. But his teacher is good (really good) and she has a reputation for being good with young, impulsive boys, both of which Will is. So I'm going to try to stop worrying and remember that things will be fine. Things will be fine. If I repeat it enough, things will be fine. Right?

Also related to school, walking to and fro is a big hit with all of us. Laura loves getting in the "cool" stroller (?) and I like that Will gets to burn some energy first thing in the morning. An added bonus is that we've already met a few other families out walking their kids to school, which is nice. I read somewhere that at some point (maybe in the '50s?), 51% of kids walked to school, while only 13% do now. (I thought 13% seemed high?) I know in a lot of cases, like where I grew up, it just isn't possible, but it's beyond me that people here who live within easy walking distance to school (which would be most of the people here, since it's a small town) would choose to drive instead of walking. But that's neither here nor there.

And speaking of walking to school, it's time for me to start thinking of heading that way after cleaning up a little around here. But before I go, I'll leave you with Laura's sweet little self, lest she go unrepresented here today.

I know. When did she become a little girl?

More soon!