1st Day of School (and Fashion Personalities)

There have been summers where I am shocked that summer is ending; I dread having to send my kids back to school and (briefly) consider homeschooling so I don't have to let them go. This is NOT one of those years. This year I am very excited to see them all head off to school. As though an enormous weight has been lifted. (I am still a little euphoric from my first grocery shopping with only two kids along).

It was, however, difficult to let Elise go to middle school. Where she knows NO ONE. I walked her to the corner (that I can't see from the house!) where the bus would pick her up. I didn't even embarrass her by asking if she wanted me to stay. Well, I may have hinted that the option was there. OK, I did ask, but only once . . . or twice. (But there weren't any other kids at the stop yet) I know, I know, the worst thing for Elise would have been for all the kids on the bus to see her Mommy waiting at the bus stop with her, but I did make Ryan go out and stand with her till the bus came to make sure no one drove by and threw her into the back of their car (He is only one grade behind so I reasoned it wouldn't be as embarrassing). I thought leaving them for kindergarten (at the kindergarten door) was hard!!

I did walk the other three down to their stop and stayed with them for a few minutes (until other kids got there). They leave an hour after Elise, so we had some time to get things done before we left for the stop. See what I can do with "extra" time? I call this the triangle-part-cross-over-basket-weave-pigtails hairdo. If you like it you can stop by anytime this week and take a closer look (I'm not taking it out anytime soon!)

Finally, anyone with a large family knows that people seem to see your children as one homogeneous group, which they are not. I thought I would use their first day outfit choices to illustrate some of my kids' differences in personality: