Memories of The First Day of School

Our church started the Awana program two years ago. In those two years, I have been the Cubbies Director. Cubbies is a two-year program for children that begins when a child is three years old. So, I have now gone through a full cycle with a group of kids who now will graduate to Awana Sparks (Kindergarten through 2nd grade). Those children started the first day of Kindergarten today. I think I'm having just as hard a time losing them to Sparks as their moms are to losing them to Elementary School! But, we'll be starting a new Cubbies year on September 3rd and I'm looking forward to seeing my 4 year-olds again and introducing some new 3 year-olds to the group.

With the new school year starting, I've been thinking about all those first days of school I had with my boys. If you know me at all you know that I'm not a morning person, so getting to school early with time to spare just never really happened. So, usually when we were running out the door, I'd scream, "Oh, I forgot pictures... hurry, hurry, get on the porch and let me take pictures." At first, I never heard any complaints, but as the years went by and each year I'd scream that same sentence, the kids would get a bit agitated at me.

Here are a couple of pictures from Kale's first day of Kindergarten...

AWWWWW! How sweet. Could those pants have ridden any higher? And what about those matching mustard colored socks! That boy gelled his own hair every single day by himself!! Precious, he is.

Tyler wanted to jump in the picture. Kale is appearing a bit nervous at this point.

And here is a picture from Tyler's first day of Kindergarten... (you can tell he's the kind of kid that said, "Mom, you don't need to walk me to class. I know where to go.")

Because I was "one of those moms" they usually had matching outfits (at least until they put their foot down).

I didn't get pictures every year... because I was probably too late to even scream my usual "Oh, I forgot pictures...." sentence. But here are the ones I found.

Oh, how I miss those days. No more "first day of school pictures"... even if I wanted to, the boys simply wouldn't let me. What are the chances Kale would do a self-timed portrait next week at college just to make me smile? I'll catch Tyler just before he wakes up.

Some of you have read Kale's comments on my blog... he has the best time poking fun at me (and several others, actually). Kale has always been my serious child. He was NEVER a little boy... he was always a little man... even as a baby. It was hilarious. He's been analytical all his life, and is the most observant thing - he notices details about everything! I'm not sure when he got his sense of humor, and sometimes he's the only one who gets it. But, one day, I think it was in his senior year of high school, he had been going through old pictures and he got a wild hair and decided to put together a little reminder to me of all the first day of school pictures I MADE him endure... and here's what it looked like:

Poke fun of me now, little man!!!