I'm a Bad, Bad Blogger!

I am horrible! How long has it been since I posted? Never mind...I don't really want to know. Let's just start from today and move forward, shall we?

Afton started kindergarten this past Wednesday. They have staggered-start at her school for newbies, basically that means that 1/3 of the class went to school on Wednesday, 1/3 on Thurs and 1/3 on Friday. She was SOOOO excited! Joe and I were up and getting ready for work when we hear a little voice from down the hall singing "It's my day for kindergarten! Today I go to kindergarten! It's my first day for kindgergarten!" We opened her bedroom door and she was dancing (naked) in the middle of her room with her dress in one hand and shoes in the other. She's generally a pretty happy kid anyway, but that particular morning, she was over the moon! Joe and I both took her to school and walked her to her class, and I was totally *that* mom...I had my camera under one arm and some First Day of School Treats for her teacher and teacher's aid. I am not above a little bribery.

I had Afton pose outside the school in front of the sign...

...and with her teacher...

...and then at her desk...

(this is when she said "Mommy, please don't take anymore pictures or you're going to make me angry.")

So, always respectful of my daughter's wishes, I snuck one more as we were walking out the door...

She did fantastic! Not a single tear! The same can't be said for me, I held it in until one teacher said to me "It's ok, mom...she's going to be fine." It was pretty much downhill from there. It's a good thing I had my preschool class to keep me busy, otherwise I would have just sat in a dark room and cried all day.

Joe was able to get off work early enough that day to go with me to pick her up from school. No walking into her classroom this time, she wants to be big stuff and so we let them dismiss her from the gym with the rest of the kids. They dismiss the bus riders first, and then the car riders all go to the gym and wait to hear their name called over the PA system. All the cars line up and, one by one, they give their student's name to the Asst Principal and she announces it over a microphone into the gym. Afton came bouncing out of the gym with her backpack and it struck me again at how much she's grown up. She was all smiles, and I thought "Great! She had a wonderful first day!" As she got in the car we asked her if her first day of kindgergarten was awesome and she said "Ummmm...not really."

WHAT!?!?!??!

She was sure that she had gotten in trouble "a lot", and that her teacher wasn't nice, but she thought eating in the lunchroom was "awesome". After much begging for more information on my part, we discovered that she hadn't really gotten in trouble - but she didn't know the rules of her new school and we explained that it was all part of being in kindergarten. Then we explained that her teacher wasn't really mean, but was trying to help her learn the rules. She goes back tomorrow, and I'm hoping for a better report tomorrow afternoon...we'll see.

Oh, and did I mention that she's lost 2 teeth in the past week?? Yep, my baby's growing up. I don't like it...at all.