First day of school

Jake started Kindergarten today. I have a picture of each one of my kids standing on the front porch the first day of school. Jake is by far the happiest one. LOL He will go for 3 weeks and then have 3 weeks off before they actual school year starts up. It's a program for Kindergartner's to experience school with none of the older kids around. They will have the entire school to themselves and things won't be as scary.

Jake has been very excited about the whole thing. Last year at this time he would have crawled into his self made shell and refuse to talk...refuse to get out of the car...cry...cry some more...

It's amazing what a whole year can do to the maturity level. He's gone from a scared withdrawn 5 year old to an outgoing fun loving 6 year old. Okay, so he's ALMOST six. Keeping him home last year was a very good decision. That point was driven home as I stood on the playground in a sea of crying, scared kids.

Jake couldn't wait to get to school today. He was anxious for us to hurry up and leave. Alex woke up early and came with us...which made him very happy. As with all the other kids, I got a shot of him standing next to the school sign. He was slightly annoyed that I made him stop and take the time to do that picture. LOL

He walked right up to his teacher and said, "Hi". She introduced herself and then told him that he could go out on the playground until they were ready to start. He didn't have to be told twice...since running and jumping are his favorite things. When we got outside there was another little boy with the same exact "Super Mario Galaxy" backpack. Apparently, this meant they were best friends as far as Jacob was concerned. He instantly started climbing this jungle gym with his "new friend". He's wearing the green shirt, at the top of this yellow climber.

After about 2 minutes had gone by he tossed his back pack at me and said, "Hold this while I play tag with my new friends." LOL He then spent the next 10 minutes running wildly around the playground. I let him do it too...because I figured he needed to release all that pent up energy. I'm sure his teacher would appreciate that thoughtful gesture on my part. :)

We were there pretty early and as he was playing the buses started dropping the kids off and the playground got pretty full. There are 5 kindergarten classrooms at our school. When the classes started to line up he came over to me and said, "who are all those other kids?". I told him that they were in other Kindergarten's and he just looked confused. I snapped a shot of him walking in his line into the classroom. You can get a feel for how the school is set up from this picture. His line is the furthest...you can see Alex standing at the end of the group and Jake is just about to enter the building. It's so nice that they all have their own door directly from the playground.

I walked into the class with him and said, "I'll see you after school" and he said, "OK, bye" with a HUGE smile on his face. It was so easy to leave him there today knowing that he was thrilled to be at school. I can't wait to pick him up and hear all his stories.