It’s the first day of school! And I would say we’re off to a good start.

First of all, I didn’t cry today.

Please, take a moment to stop and acknowledge this huge milestone…

Okay, moving on.

The Little Bird started school today. She is off to Grade 2!

Now I need a moment to acknowledge this huge milestone…

I’m so proud of her!

As with every first day school, I make the girls take pictures with a sign I make. I make them pose on their own, with each other, with their backpacks, both inside and outside, and on the way to school. It’s a ritual, and they are always excited to see what their sign looks like this year.

I even turned on the video camera to do a short first day interview. The Little Bird answered all my questions, and all the questions the Little Mouse asked her too! You can see her maturity come through the lens. She is quieter, more serious and thinks about her answers first. It’s amazing.

The Little Mouse doesn’t start Junior Kindergarten until Friday.

Friday!!?!

I’m not the gambling type, but I’m pretty certain there will be tears on Friday. (Mine, of course. Not the Little Mouse’s)

But back to today…

We were early, but the girls wanted to get to school, so we got our umbrellas and made our way, slowly walking to school in the light rain. I think the Little Bird was a bit nervous, but I think she was excited to see who her teacher was.

And she was excited to see her friends.

Since it was wet outside, we met in the gym, and waited around for the class lists to be posted. In the meantime, she said hi to her friends and her reading buddy from last year. She was super excited to see that her reading buddy (now in grade 6), had a donut backpack just like she did!

Yes, her backpack is covered in colourful images of donuts. And it was packed with a healthy lunch, huge water bottle, indoor shoes, extra clothes, a ruler and three pencil cases; one for crayons, one for markers and pencil crayons and one with pens, pencils, erasers, highlighters and a glue stick.

It made the bag pretty heavy, but she did her best not to complain.

Finally, a list went up and she was surprised to see that her old phys ed teacher from last year, was her grade 2 teacher this year. And then she was even happier to see that she had some old friends back in her class.

She is in the full grade 2 class, while some others are in one of the other two split classes; a 1 / 2 split or a 2 / 3 split. We have a small school, so there are quite a few splits, and it appears as though she is part of the largest group, which is why they split them three times.

She was all smiles; happy with where she was. So that made me happy.

I wish her a successful year in school. May she be kind to everyone, keep her hands to herself and use her words when she needs to. I hope she works hard, plays hard and learns a lot. I hope she builds new friendships and takes on new challenges. I hope she shows what a wonderful, bright and curious child she is. That her love of learning and trying new things help her achieve all her goals.

You go, Little Bird! Be brave, work hard, show kindness to others and be yourself. That is what a successful school year is all about.

Happy first day of school!