first day of first grade

today's the day - the first day of first grade!  madelyn was up around 4:30am.  she did fall back asleep in our bed which was nice since my alarm was set for 5:30 and i didn't want her up quite so early.

madelyn had several requests for the morning.  she wanted me to make banana chocolate chip muffins with orange, strawberry, banana juice for breakfast, she wanted to help make her lunch and she wanted me to curl her hair.  plus, i was hoping for a shower so i had to get an early start.

she wore the outfit that we found during our shopping trip on saturday and was very excited about it (because it had black, her latest favorite color).

and i was going to have an 8x10 of her kindergarten first day picture for her to hold for the first day of first grade picture but i forgot to get it this week (i did remember but forgot to place the order).  oh well.  i guess our tradition is now a family picture on the couch for the first day.  the better picture was blurry for some reason.

so we loaded everyone up and headed to take madelyn to school.  she was still all excitement and i was pretty excited for her too.  it was really nice that matt could work his schedule to get to be with us.  school doesn't start until 9am and he then has like a half hour drive to work, it made for a really late start for him.

we were at the school before they started letting students in so we were able to get a picture of madelyn with the school sign (i have edited it to hide the school name).

and here is the one from the first day of kindergarten for comparison.  she has grown a lot in the past year!  (some of the change is the slope of the ground and the angle though.)

we had to wait in a loose line for entrance to the school and i was glad that we were toward the front.  when the bell rang they started letting kids into the school.  with each step we took, madelyn got closer and closer to me.  first she was just touching my dress, then she had a handful of my dress, then she had an arm around my leg, then she was leaning on my arm and then trying to put her head under my arm.  parents were only allowed into the front lobby to say their good-byes.  after a few kids went in and parents left, the school secretary came running up and said that "just for today" parents were going to be allowed to walk the kids to their classrooms!  we had gotten voicemail and email yesterday saying that we would not be allowed in so this was a last second change just before it was our turn to say good-bye.  i literally burst into tears.  i did keep it together so that madelyn wouldn't notice but i was so relieved to get a chance to at least see her teacher that a lost it.  i hadn't even realized that i was holding that much anxiety this morning because i wasn't feeling stressed at all.

we walked down the hall she was in before and found her new classroom, but i had to do a double-take because her kindergarten teacher was inside the room!  kindergarten doesn't start until next week so i guess the teachers help with the transition to first grade.  we couldn't believe our luck to have her teacher in her new class (there are only like five kids from her k class in this one).  God was sure answering our prayers this morning!  

since parents coming in was a last minute change, i don't think the teachers knew.  we were the first parents into madelyn's room and her teacher seemed a bit frazzled trying to give the kids instructions, showing them where their seats were and trying to greet us all at the same time, plus it was the first day.  so we didn't take any pictures and said a quick good-bye after an introduction with her teacher.

my relief was so overwhelming that i kept tearing up.  it was such a better start to today than i could have even hoped for!  i can't wait to hear all about it when she gets off the bus this afternoon.  (she is riding home since manning will be napping.)  school gets out at 4 and i am guessing that her bus will come about 20 minutes later.  the bus was about 20 minutes late this morning so who knows what time she will actually get home.

i sure i will post an update on her first day a little later tonight.  love.