The First Day of School

Today is the first day of school for the 2008-2009 school year. For some parents this is the day that they have waited for the whole entire summer. Some parents are ambivalent either way. As for me, this is one of the saddest days of the year. This day means that my children are getting older, closer to leaving the nest. This day means that once again I am going to have to give most of my children's waking hours over to someone else. This day means that I have to become a drill sergeant and start buckling down on bed times, homework and reading. This day means that I have less time to play with my kids :(
On the flip side, I also have a cleaner house, and I can get a lot of stuff done.
Just because I don't like this day though, does not mean that my kids are sad to be leaving my side. For the most part, excitement is the main emotion. This year for the first time, we will have kids in all three schools. Sage is in High School, Sarah Middle School and the boys are still in elementary (thank heavens)! We got new shirts and shoes, paper, binders, pens, pencils and erasers. All the necessary items to start school off on the right foot. The little boys were so excited that they woke up around 5am! By the time we left for school (at 8) they were tired again and probably would have preferred to take a little nap.

Sarah as always was excited to go see all of her friends. In fact one of her friends, LK, decided that they should walk together. Oh the independence. She was totally ready to rock and roll.

Sage on the other hand was totally ready to stay home, (if that made me feel better). He thought that starting tomorrow wouldn't be so bad if it made me life just a wee bit better. I am happy to report that I didn't take him up on that offer. So this morning at 7am, we got in the car, Isaac came along for moral support, and drove Sage to his first day, of the last school he'll attend as a dependent required by law. We left early because we didn't want to be late if traffic was bad near the school (we heard that it's terrible). Well needless to say, we were early. We arrived at the school at 7:10. This freaked Sage out, he didn't want to get out of the car. He didn't want to arrive that early. He didn't think school actually started at 7:30, he thought it started at 7:55. Through all of this, I kept telling him that he wasn't too early, that school did indeed start at 7:30 and he'd need all that time to get to his locker and then to the auditorium for the first day of school assembly. I told him again how he needed to get out. He said, he would wait. He said he'd take Isaac in. (Isaac was all for this plan, he thought hanging out in Sage's locker would be fun :) )
I told him he'd have to kiss me goodbye if he didn't get out then (he said that was OK and I could walk him to his locker and stuff. "SAGE GET OUT OF THE CAR!!" I looked in the rear view mirror to make sure that I wasn't holding up things with my stubborn baby boy, when I recognized the kid getting out. "Hey Sage, there's JV!" "Where??" "Right behind us, getting out of his car." Sage then just hops out, says goodbye and yells "Hey J!" and acts like this was no big deal. I hate to point out that it was, only to him. I can't wait until he comes home and tells me about his day!

The little boys were SOOOOOO much easier. We went to school, found the right lines for each of their classes, they saw their friends and said they'd see me after school. I am thrilled to be raising such independent and confident children, who can easily leave me and not think twice about it. But dang, I miss them.