I’ll get back to being Cranky James later this week, I swear.  In the meantime, yesterday was a big milestone since it was my eldest daughter’s first day in kindergarten.  Maybe it was because I’ve been dropping her off at her Montessori class since she was 18 months old but the morning was tear-free, albeit one that Megan and I dreaded.  Your first child’s first day in real school is a huge milestone and you thank whatever deity/innate object you can that you have a) had a healthy child for that length and b) a child who is ready for school and looking forward to it.  Sadly, we also live in an age where I have to add part C – the hope that her schools are never ones where school violence happens as a result of disgruntled, heavily-armed psychopaths.

A parent’s wish is for their child to live a happy and normal life, albeit one that is successful as determined by the child when they are an adult.  You can only hope by that point you’ve steered them in the right direction and that they make the proper adult life decisions.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.  She’s only into her second day of school but I am bursting with pride as to how she is doing so far.  Her teacher seems to be really nice and it was comforting, during last week’s ice cream social, to see her former students (now first graders) all rush to say hello to her.  Had she been someone they didn’t like, I doubt they’d make their presence known to her.

I kind of wish yesterday hadn’t been Trash Day in Decatur, seeing that it kind of ruined what I thought was a perfect shot of Ally and Megan on our way to school.

Here she is just leaving the auditorium and headed to her classroom.  That's a My Pretty Pony tattoo on her left arm.  We don't think she's joined a gang...yet.

Classroom shot.  She's in the middle.

And a quick smiling photo when she got into our car after her triumphant first day.  Don’t worry, she was about to be buckled in and the ID necklace for first day kindergartners was about to be untangled from her neck.

Side note - When we tried to pry info out of her about how her first day was, she initially would only divulge that she had cheese pizza at lunch and that she was a good girl and chose white milk over chocolate milk.