First Day of School 2014

Today is the start of another school year. Eric met his teacher last week. Natalie and Alex are going in today not knowing exactly what their schedule will be. We're hoping their schedules aren't too hard to sort out.

This is a picture of Eric that I took this morning. He is holding up a picture that I took last year on the first day of school for first grade, where he is holding up a picture that I took the year before that, when he was going into kindergarten. Wow, time does fly! Now I wish I would have given him bigger pictures, since you can barely see the other images from years past in the picture he is holding. I got the idea from someone's blog, and I hope to keep doing it (and that Eric lets me) until he is a senior in high school.

He got a new backpack this year. His dinosaur backpack from the last two years was actually still in good shape--Alex decided to use it this year (see below), but I happened to mention getting a new one and Eric was all over that idea. There were several to choose from--Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, another dinosaur one, Avengers. He decided on Transformers. He saw the fourth Transformers movie this summer and he loved it, even though the rest of the family (I didn't get to see it with them) universally panned it. Now, if there had been a Pokemon backpack, he might have chosen that one instead.

Notice also that he is wearing a shirt with a shark on it that says "Trouble". He doesn't put any thought into what he wears, so the shirt he chose was probably just the first one he pulled out of his drawer. He is wearing relatively new shoes also--Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He still has a good pair of Avengers shoes, but he seems to choose this pair more frequently. He is actually wearing socks with it because Patrick and I asked that he wear socks. He loves not wearing socks and leaving his sweat in the shoe, resulting in very stinky shoes and feet.

Eric is my only child that will allow me to take pictures of him when there are other people around, in other words, he let me take pictures at the bus stop. We were out there first just so I could take photos. He decided to pose for me here. One of our neighbors drove by after I took this picture and said that he loved the pose. That's pure Eric. I'm just happy that he lets me take pictures of him.

In the past, there have been several kids at the bus stop on the first day of school. This year there was only three, including Eric. I figured that the parents decided to drive their kids to school this morning, but this afternoon, only three kids got off at our bus stop. One of them was different from the morning. His mom drives him to school in the morning because he has a hard time getting up that early. There were certainly a lot of people dropping off kids when we drove Alex to school and when I picked him up. More on this later.

This is probably the only time Natalie lets me take pictures of her without trying to shield her face with her hand or arm. She even let me take three pictures, until I got the settings right--I'm still a very amateur photographer, after all. She had a better half-smile in the first picture, but I liked the color on this one better. I did tell her that it was okay not to smile--I just didn't want a frown.

My sister Cynthia managed to take a picture of her daughter Alyssa near the bus stop. Natalie would never allow that, because someone might see me. I'm happy to be able to get this photo by our front door.

She is using the same backpack as in the last couple or so years. I remember buying that red backpack for me for about $25 (on sale at half the usual price of $50). I didn't think it would last this long, especially with how Natalie stuffs it full of heavy books and throws it around.

Notice also that this year, she is not wearing the uniform top, which is a white polo. She learned right away last year that she didn't have to, as long as she wore a "spirit shirt", and she was all over that. She always hated that polo shirt. She is much more of a T-shirt girl. Notice also that even with expected 100 degree weather today, she is wearing a jacket, albeit a light jacket. She is also wearing a headband along with the ponytail this year, and her new navy blue Toms (with purposely mismatched no-show socks, of course).

When I told Alex that I wanted to get a first day of school photo of him, at first he balked. We agreed that he didn't have to smile, because he said that his smile isn't very good in the morning. As long as he isn't frowning, I'll take it!

He is wearing a Florida Gators shirt, even though he's not a fan. He just liked the design. He is also wearing his new sneakers--ONE of his new sneakers. He has gotten several new pairs over the last few months. Notice that he has Eric's old dinosaur backpack. He already said that he probably couldn't fit his books in there, since it's smaller than his usual backpack, so he won't be able to use this all the time.

I told Eric that I would take him to Baskin-Robbins for ice cream after school today, but when he got home, he decided that he would eat some of the crescent rolls I made for breakfast this morning. I filled some with chocolate chips and some with cinnamon sugar--his favorite was the chocolate chips.

I looked in Eric's "agenda" book in his backpack, and for today's entry, he had put "stay on green". Apparently, it's his "goal" to "stay on green" for a whole month. He added that one of his classmates had a goal to "stay on green" for the whole year. When I asked him why his goal was only one month, he replied, "It's really hard to stay on green for a year." At least he's honest. :)

Patrick left early to pick up Natalie from school instead of her taking the bus, since she had a physical therapy appointment at 4pm, so I picked up Eric from the bus by myself. After his snack, I took Eric with me to pick up Alex from school. Surprisingly, there was no traffic getting to the school, but there was a ton of traffic to get into the parking lot. It probably took me more time to get into the parking lot than to drive there from home. Luckily, Eric was fine reading his dinosaur book in the car.

By the way, notice the light differences in the photos above. Eric's bus arrived around 7am. Natalie's bus gets there around 7:30am, and we left to take Alex to school at 8am. It got easier and easier to take good pictures as the morning went on. The kids have a staggered school start here so that the older kids have a later start. My sister Cynthia's high school son had to catch the bus before Eric did. That's crazy!

So, that was the first day of school. I haven't heard many details yet, mostly that they weren't happy with their schedule and that they already miss summer vacation. I'll report back here if I actually hear details. Thanks for reading!