one day down, 19 more years to go.....

so caleb's first day at school went off without a hitch.  

aside from the fact that i was stressed out because i was running a little behind & didn't want to look like "that mom" on his first day.  all of the rest of the days i couldn't care less, but this was his FIRST DAY.  no curlers and green face mask for me standing and waving goodbye in my long nightgown, no sir.

ben didn't have class until a little later so he was able to come with us, and i was grateful for it.  there's limited parking at the school and we had to park pretty far away in order to drop him off.  luckily we were prepared with a stroller, so we strapped leah in and took off.

at the kindergarten gate we took the official pictures:

 

 

and caleb didn't hesitate for a second, taking the hand of the lady helping him to find his class's line.  we watched him line up, and i will admit to sticking the camera lens through the gate and continually snapping away.  

then his teacher saw me and bless her, told him to look up and wave.

and he did.  

 

then marched on in, in front of a little boy who kept grabbing the side of his backpack.  caleb didn't seem to mind.

 

oh, my heart.

i'm not going to lie and say that it wasn't hard.  

i immediately had flashbacks of caleb through the years.  rocking with him and singing to him every night before bed, watching him take his first steps with tears in my eyes.  all of our conversations and time outs and rewards and laughter.

he's so grown up.

and even though it's the way it should be, 

it's not the easiest thing in the world i've had to do.

i love this kid so much.  i love his personality.  

his sweetness, his silliness, his bossiness, his fighting spirit, his good heart.  

i know he's going to do great.

i surprisingly didn't cry, as we turned to walk away.

i did however, when we got home, go upstairs and say an extra prayer.

then came back downstairs and made myself a banana split with mint chocolate chip icecream and hot fudge at 9:30 am  {ben had one too}.  

so i guess my icecream got the emotion instead. 

when i went to pick him up he ran to me and gave me the biggest hug.  his teacher said that he did great, he earned one of the "good job" stamps for the day and only needs 9 more in order to earn a treasure from the treasure box.   he told me how his teacher had introduced him to the class and how he had already made a couple of friends. and then he showed me what he had worked on.

caleb can read fantastically and knows all of his letters but has been a little slow with the writing part.

i thought this was the cutest thing.  his first schoolwork, coming home.

"the cat is fat."

i'm going to keep it forever.

well the hurdle of the first day is over.

what's next?

and am i going to need to buy more icecream for it?