The first day of school

The arrival of the first day of school got me thinking about one of my former co-workers, Carolyn. She was probably the original helicopter mom. She would take annual leave every year for her child's first day of school to sit home and think about what her daughter may be doing and to wait for her to come home. She would take her daughter to the bus stop and then wait in her car. When the bus arrived, she would follow it in her car, get out at school, walk her daughter into her classroom and take a picture of her daughter sitting at her new desk. And she would do this each and every year. We would often joke that her daughter would one day get a restraining order against her mother barring her from entering her classroom on her first day of high school.

For me, the my children's first days of school have always been a non event. Big Boy was in an early learning center from preschool on. His school also functioned as a daycare so his technical "first day of school" was just like any other to me. I dropped him off in the morning as I had been all summer and picked him up in the afternoon. The only difference for him was that at a certain time, they put the paydough away and focused on coloring within the lines for a few hours and then in the afternoon, went back to the play dough.

Big Boy's first day of kindergarten was another non event. I dropped him off at daycare (different daycare and school than before) and sometime after that, while I was at work, a bus picked him up and took him to his first day. Now, my husband happened to be off that day so he did drive to the school to take pictures of Big Boy getting off the bus and going into the school but he certainly didn't follow him in.

Lil' Bit was in public pre-school for her adoption related delays so she was picked up from daycare by bus and taken to public school shortly after her third birthday (when she aged into the program). No fuss, no following a bus and certainly no pictures of her behind her new desk.

So, tomorrow, the first day back, will most likely see us scrambling to get dressed, fed and out of the house in time to make the bus and then nary a though of the little ones until 4:00 when we hear the back-up bell of the bus turning around on our street.

But, I will be thinking of Carolyn's daughter though. She would probably be in high school now. I wonder how her first day is going.