School Begins

School is officially started. My big girl started kindergarten and my life as a parent of a school-aged child has begun. I cannot believe how many handouts and fliers get sent home daily. I am still trying to figure out how to organize it all. There seem to be fundraisers everywhere I turn and the teachers still ask for donations. They must not get much public funding, which isn't surprising since this is a republican state. Syvanah's teacher appears to be great and really on top of things. She is enthusiastic and experienced. She has already been blown away by Syvanah's reading ability, and tells me not to worry she will have her read with the third graders so she is continually challenged. That is good, because I want her to develop in other areas with children her age as well. When her teacher asked where she learned to read, Syvanah told her "my mom taught me". I was happy that she gave me some credit, but the credit is really due to her drive to learn. I (and Grandmas) just supplied the books and videos that helped her along the way.

Her first day to school started with the bus ride. I was nervous sending my not even 5-year-old on such a big bus with so many children and without my help to show her the way. I figured she wasn't the first kindergartener to ride a bus though, and the helpful staff knew exactly what they were doing.

It had just rained a days prior and the mosquitoes were terribly bad at our new home. As we stood waiting for the bus, mosquitoes were making attacks on Taylor, Syvanah, Ringo and myself. If it wasn't bad enough to try to keep them off me, I was trying to keep them off the kids and dog as well! By the time I got home, my ankles and feet were pretty much spotted over with mosquito bites.

Besides that, her departure on her first day was as good as I hoped. After the bus pulled up she got in line to get on. She was smiling so big, she didn't seem nervous at all. She looked back at me a couple of times- smile beaming! Before climbing aboard she waved to me and yelled above the engine, "I love you, Mom". That is enough to pull at any mom's heart strings- unfortunately, I had to quickly snap a few pictures, then hurry back to the cover of home to seek shelter for Taylor, Ringo and me from the mosquitoes. Our neighborhood has been fogged since then, and even with a recent rain I haven't seen any mosquitoes.