The End of an Era

Today my time as a full-time mom at home with my kids ends. Tomorrow, my youngest, little Ruby starts kindergarten. Today was kindergarten orientation, where they do a 2-hour version of the school day with the parents there to give the kids a taste of what school will be like for them. Tomorrow, we drop them off and leave.

And I will go home to an empty and quiet house and try to figure out what to do with the rest of my life.

Or, I might stay and help out at the school. Why not? It's not like I have anywhere else I have to be, and kindergarten classes always need help.

She had a great time, though, and was excited to be there and to meet her teacher and to see the classroom and to meet some of the kids (about half of her class was there for our session, and the other half went later in the day). Her teacher told them, "I'm very excited for this school year and I hope you are too." And Ruby said, "I'm SO excited!" And she sure meant it!

She got to play on the playground, which she loved (they have a huge, huge sandbox under a big leafy tree, it's round and goes all the way around the tree) and she was happy. We made sure to take off her shoes carefully and dump them outside so we wouldn't get sand in the carpet. Even though she said, "I don't mind sand in my carpet."

So that's what happened today. I'm not sure how I'll be tomorrow. She's so happy and excited to be in school, it's hard to be sad about it when she's around. But, I suppose I'll have a good cry when I get home.

Here she is looking all cute with her backpack.


And here she is in class making her little apple with her name on it.


I didn't get any pictures of Sam on the first day, because as soon as we got to the school, he jumped out of the car and said, "See ya!" and took off. Ah well.