End of Summer and Start of School

We packed up and headed out to the beach on Friday night. I just wanted one more day to spend on the beach. It was a gorgeous beach day and also a magical one.

Behold. . .

QT stepped foot in the sand! Granted, it took him a while to ease into it, but after playing with trucks on his sand-covered towel, he ventured down to the water's edge with bare feet.

The Ladies got one last day to run and play and we ended the night with some ice cream and a full-on meltdown by the Lady, but really isn't that what the end of summer is about? Ice cream and sheer exhaustion.

End of summer fun

The Little Lady's new pose. Gone is the cheese face. It has been replaced with the ballerina pose.

The next morning we got up and out early and headed over to Mystic to meet up with some friends. It was another beautiful day and I was charmed by the New Englandness of it all, and I live in New England.

Drawbridge in Mystic

Everyone got a new book from the local bookstore and some more ice cream. We watched the bridge go up a few times then got back in the van and headed home to prepare for the Lady's first day of first grade. On the trip home she lost her second tooth, which is great because when I have to drag her back to the dentist next week they won't have to pull it. 

The Lady outside the bookstore

One good thing about the start of this school year was that it was a delayed start. There was no mad dash to get out the door. I made homemade pancakes. I tried to do something Pintrest-y and make the pancake into a shape of a 1. It looked more like a penis than a 1, so I scrapped that idea and had the Lady make her own sign to mark the day.

Best first day of school sign ever!

We were all up, dressed and ready to go. However, there was confusion about what time the bus would be coming and what time school really started. The letter from the elementary school said that they would start at 10:45. The letter from the city said that they would start at 11. We took a guess and headed out. The Lady was 30 yards ahead of me walking out of the driveway, QT and the nanny were behind her in his little red car and I was trying to catch up while at the same time encouraging the Little Lady to maybe hurry up as she tried to maneuver on her Barbie scooter.

The Lady before boarding the bus.

After the Lady got on the bus I obviously ran back to the house so I could jump in the van and meet her at school with a giant bag of school supplies, which included four boxes of Kleenex (each with a box top on it and four additional box tops on the outer plastic, which I debated taking for myself, but figured the teacher would put them toward the class total), two rolls of paper towels and an assortment of crayons, markers, pencils and glue sticks.

I rushed the Little Lady into the van and headed out. I knew that the bus was ahead of me, so I was worried that I might miss the Lady getting off the bus. I was super psyched when I pulled through an intersection and saw the bus sitting at a red light while I went through on the green. After it turned the bus ended up being two cars behind us.

As we approached the school, you could see that things were not in order. Buses were lined up at the top of the entrance and cars and buses were backed up onto the main road. I like to think I channeled my husband here as I made a quick move into the church next door, parked totally illegally and got out. The Lady's bus was stopped at the flashing yellow at the entrance to the school waiting to make the turn.

The Lady's school is down off the main road about 100 yards or so. There is one entrance/exit road with two lanes total. The Little Lady and I started walking. People were stopped all over the place, cars were beeping, buses were idling, it was like we were on our way to Max Yasgur's farm. The Little Lady didn't like that the grass was wet, so I lifted her, the giant bag of school supplies, my camera and my purse, and weaved our way down to the front entrance.

The Little Lady could have walked backwards and through molasses and we would have gotten there before the Lady's bus. To say that there was some first day confusion would be an understatement. This year kindergarten orientation was in the morning, so all the parents who had gone with their kindergartners were now trying to make there way out of the school. Chaos ensued.

Ten minutes after the Little Lady and I got to the front entrance, the Lady's and three other buses pulled up. Good thing I met her because at that point they were technically late and all the aides that usually help with directing the students in the morning had already made their way into classrooms.

Gone was that comfortable bubble of kindergarten. I didn't know where the Lady's classroom was and neither did she. But we grabbed hands, made our best guess as to the direction to go and ended up in front of her classroom. I was incredibly relieved that as soon as she walked in I heard another student call her name. I kissed her goodbye, grabbed the Little Lady, stopped and signed up for a few less volunteer spots than I did last year and hoped that the Lady would have a great first day in first grade.