Think hard about your first memory of this. Not daycare, but actual, "school" where you got books, backpack, pencils, and your own assigned seat in a chair with a desk attached. As you get older, the memory may become as fuzzy as "new math" feels. I can barely still grasp the feelings that must have danced through my brain and the thumping as adrenaline raced through veins on the car ride to class. I'm sure I probably talked someone's ear off in excitement those many years ago, with questions regarding useless information that seemed utterly critical before I entered the hallowed halls of learning.
With daughters, there is much prep, coordination, and certainly excitement. The social nature of this unique species that is an elementary daughter, creates a Petri dish of learning, for both daughter and her father. In the first week since our daughters returned to class, with our youngest finally attending class every day during the week, I've learned:
1. The first day school photograph has not improved. Folks in early America in the 1800's would still be proud of the difficulty we have in achieving a great picture. In spite of the fact camera technology has progressed to the point we can photograph an up close image of Satuurn's surface, and you can easily shoot 1,000 photos in a second by holding down the button on your phone, it remains a fact that 999 of these shots will involve some combination of a finger up a nose, eyes closed, a forced smile, or a pissed off child.
2. The backpack has grown. Like a hermit crab, my daughters chose to accessorize their school uniforms with a small themed hotel room on their shoulders. Aren't books going digital? Are we saving the environment and preventing global warming now by blocking UV rays with backpacks? I can't keep up with the green movement...
3. Either my children were excited, or they simply wanted to try to jump out of a moving vehicle. Removing a seat belt faster than Superman can change clothes, it was very clear my wife and I could only hope to contain them in the car long enough to stop the vehicle. They race walked to the doors, and never looked back.
Had they turned around, they might have noticed their parents a bit choked up and in awe, quite simply, trying to remember what this must feel like for a kid on their first day of school, and attempting to reconcile the emotions a parent feels when they realize their children's dreams are being formed and fed while you are apart.
Dusty that first morning, really dusty.
Enjoy!
Bvd
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