First day of Kindergarten

When Alan was a baby I used to have lots of older ladies stop me in the store or at church and tell me how cute my baby was and then they would always conclude by saying "enjoy every moment because it goes by so fast". At the time a part of me knew that what they were saying was true but the other part of me was thinking "that's easy for you to say, you aren't getting up with him 3 times a night and changing 8 - 10 diapers a day and walking and walking and walking him when he is crying". Well, now that Alan is starting school I agree with them - the time has gone by so fast. When I look at him now he seems so big. When I went school shopping with him I had to buy size 6 pants and size 7/8 shirts. Also he jumped 3 shoe sizes since the last time I bought him shoes (he's now a size 2 in boys). Looking back I can say that it hasn't always been easy but it has been so fun and rewarding to stay home with him and watch him grow and develop into the handsome, smart, funny, loving boy that he is.

Alan on the first day of kindergarten

I think this picture captures some of Alan's feelings that morning:

Alan was excited to go but he was also a little nervous. The nervousness was gone by the time he got home and he was just plain excited. It has been fun to listen to him tell about his days when he gets home: how his teacher talks funny (she has an Alabama accent), how he met a boy that is "slowly transforming into a friend", how he got a hand stamp for being good. He also informed me that he did really good at school the first day and he thought it was because of his pants, so he had to wear those pants for the rest of the school week. He called them his "smarty pants". It has been harder than I thought to figure out lunches for him - the first day he came home really excited and told me he ate chicken nuggets on a tray. I guess he didn't realize his lunch bag was in his back pack so he got the hot lunch. The next day I showed him where his lunch was but when he came home only the sandwich was gone. Alan said that he didn't drink his juice because not everyone had a juice and he didn't have enough for everyone and he didn't eat his apple or cookies because they didn't have snack time. I explained that the apples and cookies were part of his lunch and that the other kids had something else to drink so he could still drink his juice. After a few days we finally got all the kinks worked out.