First day of preschool for Andrew

Guess who started three-year-old preschool today?

This guy!







Here's Andrew walking up the sidewalk to his school. I didn't get any good shots of him once he got into the classroom, though. He was totally focused on getting into his new routine, although he did stop to give me a big hug goodbye.



The reason his hair is a little crazy is that he finally consented to taking off the duck hat that he's been wearing nearly non-stop lately. You know. This hat:



All bets are off, though, as to whether he'll agree to not wear it next week to school. He will tell you that he's a duck and he HAS to wear the duck hat. To hammer home his point, he then walks around, quacking quietly. Quack, quack, quack.

So anyway, back to the first day of preschool. Andrew had a great day today, and I have to tell you, I'm so glad. He freaked out on the first day of school last year, to everyone's surprise. And I was half-worried he'd do it again this year.

But nope. He's been looking forward to going back to school ever since William started school, and he was READY. I mean, READY. What's not to love? Today, on his first day, Andrew got to eat Teddy Grahams and bananas for snacktime AND play on the Big Kids playground AND go to music class AND see all his friends. It doesn't get much better than that when you're three years old.

Second grade starts

It annoys me how ridiculously early that school starts here in Nashville now. August 1 is not a school start date. It should be the start of another week of summer camp. Or the last week of swim team. Or the week that you go to the beach. NOT the time to load up your kids' backpacks with those elusive Black Warrior pencils, Elmer's glue sticks and two-pocket folders with prongs in red, blue and yellow (why no green, folks?). 

At any rate, I am now the proud mother of a second grader. Isn't he cute? 

William really was so excited about going back to school. He was ready to see all his peeps again. And of course, I made sure that he had a turquoise shirt to wear, since he always wants to wear his favorite color on the first day of school. Well. It's sort of aqua, but it's close. Close enough.

We managed to get to school and find his classroom and meet his new (and very young!) teacher, all without incident. And we even had Andrew with us, so that's saying something.

William, in classic William form, found his new classroom and immediately began chatting everyone up. He even managed to corral his teacher and tell her all about how he's reading "The Lightning Thief" and how exciting it is.

But oh, I can't get over how grown-up he's getting, and how weird it feels to have a second-grader!

I mean, I remember starting second grade so clearly. I had a navy blue backpack with a strawberry patch on it. My teacher was Mrs. Munson. My desk was right under an air-conditioning vent, so my mom found a cardigan sweater that I could keep on my chair. It was the year we learned the song "Eidelweiss" because our classroom's assigned country for the International Festival was Austria. It was the same year I started ballet lessons at the good old Jackie O'Neal School of Dance (wonder if it's still there?).

It seems hardly possible that I'm on the Mom side of second grade now. And even more weirdly, I'm older now than my mom was when I was in second grade. Whew.

Monday is his first full day. Let's hope it's a good year!