Yesterday was Elena and Amanda's first day of kindergarten. They are going to Lovett Elementary in different classes (their classes are next door to each other). It was a momentous day that went well, as far as I can tell.
We had gone clothes shopping over the weekend to get the last-minute outfit components they needed - mostly shoes for Elena. We then picked out their outfits that they would wear on their first day and laid them out on the couch to help make Monday morning go smoother. Amanda ended up not wanting to wear the outfit we laid out, but she quickly settled on a substitute.
Donna dropped them off in plenty of time, with just a few hidden tears. Although apparently the girls were going to the wrong part of the building, so Donna had to try to get the student crossing guard to help point them in the right direction as they walked. As the introductory PTO meeting was at the start of the school day at Lovett, Donna was able to confirm that both Amanda and Elena ended up in the right classrooms.
Since Donna has her Ed.D. classes on Monday evenings, I left work a little early to go pick them up before the Extended Day program ended at 5:30 PM. I got there almost 30 minutes early, which I don't mind at all.
Since Donna was not going to get to see them after school on Monday, she was going to miss all of their reactions and stories when I went to pick them up. So to prevent that, I took our audio recorder (which was newly-purchased to replace the one we lost on our Colorado trip) and recorded everything from when I walked in the building to halfway home in the car. When I got home, I uploaded the file to my iMac, and then loaded it onto our iPod. She listened to it last night and really enjoyed it.
I'll post it to my blog once I clip out the few bits where nothing is happening. If I only could figure out how to develop a podcast enclosure...
My big activity last night consisted of filling out 2 sets of forms the girls brought home. It was an impressive amount of paperwork that we did not finish until 11:00 PM. There were so many different forms: a form to acknowledge receipt and understanding of the code of student conduct, a media release form, a Magnet program form, an Extended Day program form, emergency contact information, volunteer background check form, and on, and on. More than a dozen forms came home with each child, and I got sort of bleary-eyed after a while - I answered "USA" in the "County" field in the form I had to fill out 6 times (triplicates for each child).
Filling out the forms was the first thing Amanda told me about when I picked her up at school. She ran to me waving the large envelope with all of the forms in it saying "You need to sign these papers tonight! I get a ring pop at school if I turn them in tomorrow!" So I hope she enjoyed her ring pop.