IT ALL BEGINS...

Kaleigh headed off to Kindergarten yesterday! I have to admit that before now I really didn't get all the hype about kids starting school. I do remember when K was 1 or 2 driving by the school that she would have gone to and tearing up thinking about it. But honestly, I will miss her but I do have three little ones at home to occupy me so this mom is not sitting around moping!

It is a big deal though. For the next 15 (or more) years, someone else is largely responsible for her intellectual, emotional & social development. I guess the reason I wasn't real sad is b/c I wasn't doing that great a job for her around here! Not that I didn't try, but she's had to entertain herself a lot since she turned 3. We've always done the HIPPY program so at least there was that, but I didn't even come close to being able to do some of the amazing creative activities that I know my friends do with their children.

I'm pretty sure she's going to do great. She is very ready academically. She's extremely social & well adjusted. She can be very stubborn and gets frustrated easily, which would be her main areas to improve on. Her personality is soo much like Nathan, good & bad!

The main adjustment for us all will be the schedule. I know that no one is going to sympathize with me when I say this, but I'm having to go from getting up at 9:00 (yeah, I know!) to before 7:00. Kaleigh's a fairly early riser but not quite that early. Still, she usually gets up with a smile and starts talking, don't know where she gets that from, ha! But yesterday afternoon she was pretty tired & cranky and we had a battle over her thumb-sucking (which is worst when she's tired). We are going to have to really work on having her in bed by 8:00 or 8:30.

Outside her room

Her teacher, Mrs. Payne in the background

Settling right in

So here's how the day went yesterday - I forgot to factor in rush hour traffic and we ended up being about 4 minutes late. So we parked and were running in, me snapping pictures along the way. I didn't get the shot outside the school that I wanted, we'll have to do that later. She went in the class and her sweet teacher greeted her and she sat down at her table & started playing with blocks. I went to hug her and she kinda pulled away from me. :( To make up for being late in the morning I left the house about 30 minutes early to pick her up. I waited nervously to find out how her day went. She told me it was a lot of fun. They read a book called The Kissing Hand and went on a treasure hunt. I asked the dumb question, "do you want to go back tomorrow" but thankfully she said yes. This morning when I woke her up she said "I'm so excited to go to school today! Yesterday was fun and today will be fun too!" Seriously, isn't that what I'm supposed to be saying to her? Love that girl!