First of First

It was the first of first today - the first day of first grade.  This is always one of those days you don't see coming as a parent.  One moment you're sitting there enjoying life together, and the next, she's abruptly at school!

We got up a lot earlier today, thinking the lines might be tremendous at the school for drop-off.  It turns out getting up earlier worked - there was hardly any issue at all.  No lines, no back-up, and hardly any traffic.

We said our prayers this morning after Madison ate breakfast.  Even there, she was focused and eating everything in front of her, ready to go.  The hardest part of the day just might have been pronouncing her teacher's name!

When she got home, that was about the sound of things:  she had a great first day.  She went to gym, and did some introduction work, coloring sheets cleverly disguised as assessments of what she knows and has learned so far.  We think Madison is pretty caught up, based on the rubrics we've been eyeing. In fact, we think she's ahead in all areas - except for speech, of course.  But even with that, there's been remarkable progress.

She met some friends from last year, and ate everything in her "Brave" lunch box.  Madison has her "Brave" bookbag again this year, and as you can see in the photo above, she's wearing her Disney Princess shirt and new pink sneakers.  She's proud of these, because they're so sparkly!

One other note about the day:  at recess they got to go to the bigger playground area there.  When asked how it was, Madison's first comment was this:  "There was goose poop!"

Mommy and Daddy were working a bit on the house today, cleaning up a bit - and even harvesting some of the tomatoes and squash from outside.  The blueberries are taking a while to ripen though.  We suspect the delay in the harvest has to do with the large amounts of rain lately.  Yes, it's still raining.  We had another heavy deluge today.  It was nothing like the lengthy deluge yesterday, which has caused a lot of flooding.

Josh came over the house for a bit today, which Madison loved.  Daddy was grilling some of the burgers, chicken and hot dogs outside (after the rain), as those two were upstairs using the puppet theater.  We're talking about making a puppet show using these puppets, and filming it for an upcoming KPTV production - it'll be pretty funny, hopefully.  Madison has such an active imagination - all of us were using the puppets, and telling creative stories.

And yes, we were having a great dinner too.  It's hard to beat food grilled out!  We also had watermelon sorbet, which was astoundingly good.  Mommy does such a good job with that.

Afterwards, we played a bit of Sega Dreamcast.  Yes, that old system was hauled out - just for the retro fun, we popped in Space Channel 5," "Jet Grind Radio," "Ooga Booga," and "Chu Chu Rocket."  After Madison went to bed, of course we popped in "Typing of the Dead."  Josh hadn't seen these games, so it was pretty fun for him.  Daddy hadn't seen these in a while, so it was a lot of fun remembering these old games.

Madison went to bed early tonight, and fell asleep quickly.  She was up early, and it was a long day.  We said our prayers, and tucked her in with her sock monkey and manatee family.  It was a wonderful first day of first grade.  Homework and after school lessons are coming soon, of course.  But it was a good day to ease into a new school year.