Kate Parker Photography

First year my youngest made it all the way through trick-or-treating without going into a premature chocolate coma in the wagon.  I think maybe he used the force. 

It’s here… my little man’s first day of kindergarten. Nothing, and I mean nothing, can make a mom cry like the scared little face of her kindergartener staring up at her on the first day of school.

He was brave.  He didn’t cry.  And neither did I.  Until I got home. 

My third grader, on the other hand, was totally fine.  I remember her first day of kindergarten… I was fine until she became hysterical and BEGGED us not to leave.  That was that, and I became a basket case in short order. 

Some more photos from this morning’s first day of school:

So I’ve been asking myself all day why it’s so hard to drop my kids off on the first day of school.  Here’s why I think it is… it’s a complete loss of control.  I hate feeling like I can’t save them, protect them or even hug them all day while they’re away from me.  It’s also that I remember school.  Some years seriously sucked.  Others were great.  Surely it will be so for my children, as well.  And, on that first day, the anticipation is great… knowing that it will be one or the other, hoping it will be the latter, fearing it will be the earlier.  Lastly, each year’s first day of school is a hallmark of growth, and it means that my babies are getting older.  It means that they are one year closer to moving out of my house and being on their own.  I know it’s ridiculous to think of it this way when he’s only five, but I also know that I’ll blink and he’ll be more big than little, more grown up than baby, and more independent than dependent.  So, for now, I will bathe in the beauty and joy of every moment I have them little. 

Okay, on to a couple of little funnies.  When Little Man went in for his kindergarten assessment, one of the questions the assistant principal asked was, “A fish swims in a stream.  What does a bird do?”  His answer…. “He eats the fish.”  Is this brilliance or just a testament to his extraordinarily competitive nature? 

Last night, as we were getting ready to go to bed, I asked, “Who’s excited about the first day of school?”  “ME ME ME!!” they both answered.  Then Little Man said (with his oh-so-adorable lisp), “Mommy, I’m ethpecially exthited that it’th my firtht day of bento box luncheth!”  This brings me to the bento boxes.  When Big Sister started kindergarten, I was desperate for some way to encourage her to eat lunch.  She’s always been a super picky eater, and I just *knew* that she wouldn’t eat lunch at school (at least not if it wasn’t Doritos or cheese).  Hence was born the bento box lunch habit.  I made the cutest lunches I could, buying all kinds of bento goodies and learning all I could about the Japanese bento tradition.  Now that Little Man is in kindergarten, he got to do his own little shopping excursion for bento goodies, and today marked his first day with a bento lunch.  So here they are… my little one’s bento lunches for the first day of school 2011.

The bear is Big Sister’s, and the bunny is Little Man’s.  They have slightly different tastes (aka willingness to eat certain foods when forced or when the foods are so cute they just *have* to eat them (indulge me thinking they’ll eat this at least today, please)). 

Little Man’s bento lunch:  broccoli (how could he resist when it looks like a tree, right?), cherry tomatoes, carrot flowers, bing cherries (finally, after YEARS of searching, found a cherry pitter – awesome!) with a little man on a pick, three little pb&j bunny sandwiches, flower kiwi, sliced pluots with monkey pick and champagne grapes filling in the little spaces.

Big Sister’s bento lunch:  cherry tomatoes with tomato girl pick, lettuce for salad with bears containing Caesar dressing, little bear pick (just because he’s cute), tiny little plastic fork for her salad and broccoli, three little ham and cheese bear sandwiches (although you can’t see their cute bear faces here), flower carrots, three croutons for the salad, bing cherries, broccoli (again, the tree, although she’d eat it anyway because she loves broccoli), more flower carrots just to make that layer cuter, flower kiwi and sliced pluots with little orange bear pick. 

So here’s hoping they eat their lunch or at least open it and think about how much their mommy loves them.