First day of School!

Oh my, what a morning! We enrolled Ava in a summer mother’s day out program and today was the FIRST day! After lots of research and waiting lists, hoping for a spot in a fall program we were thrilled when we got in for both the summer and fall mother’s day out program at First Baptist Georgetown.  It is two days a week from 9:00-2:00. One of our best buddies, Caden, has been going to this mother’s day out and just loves it. I was thrilled to have a recommendation from trusted friend  and I just loved the school and people at the church when I checked it out myself.  Granted I was super excited for Ava to have some great play time with other kids AND I can’t lie and say that I wasn’t looking forward to having some one-on-one Austin time and several hours to be super productive. (Present example that I am blogging during the day not at 2 a.m., does that count as super productive?  Not scrubbing the floors or anything…hmmm)    Anyways I was pretty gung-ho about the whole thing until last night when started to pack her lunch and it hit me that I wouldn’t be eating lunch with her! I knew this of course but I felt it standing in my kitchen over her little lunch box… and then washing her nap mat, we always pray and sing before nap and I give her three kisses for “I Love You.” I was about to cry  putting her goldfish in a little princess snack trap in her lunch box. She always has a cute moment after her first goldfish- smiles with a delightful little “mmmm"  The two year old sitting by her at the snack table isn’t going to appreciate that moment!  Okay, so by this point I knew I needed a bit of a reality check and I married the right guy for that! He is the calm to my crazy.  Of course Greg reassured me that this was a good thing and it was going to be okay.

So here we go, today is the day.  I’ve been hyping school up all week and she has been beyond excited.  We’ve practiced our teacher’s name dozens of times, talked about nap time, lunch time, and how I will always come pick her up.  She’s told me a few times this week “I’m going to make new friends” and  “I’m going to only be a little bit shy with Miss Faris because you (mommy) will ALWAYS come get me!!!” Almost every day for the past month “Am I going to school today?”  and when we pull up somewhere new on errands she squeaks “Mommy is this my new school!?” 

Drumroll…..Here is our first picture before we left the house for our first day of school. I handed Ava her lunch box and said “smile!” CLICK-

“I’m staying home mommy” as she threw her lunch across the room.  Okay, time to talk about how fun school is going to be one more time

Ditty came over this morning which was a huge help because she stayed in the car with Austin while I took Ava to her classroom, and I mean if Ditty is coming along this must be something really special, right Ava?

Ava hopped out of the car. I think she was feeling better about things…love that posed pirate face!

We make it in the building with no fuss..  Take three for a good picture . Still a little unsure about this school thing… (P.S. Thank Aunt Carol for our cute lunch box!)

I LOVED meeting her teacher this morning. We had emailed prior to today about Ava’s peanut allergy.  Yep, no peanut butter and jellies allowed in that room.  Sorry parents!   Ms. Faris was so very sweet and had the warmest smile.  Ava did have a hard time saying bye and I held back a few tears. Though when I went back to peek on her after a few minutes she had stopped crying.

Firsts are hard, even firsts for exciting things like this.  When I was expressing to my mom on the way there that I was a little worried, you know hoping kids will be nice to her… hoping she doesn’t run out of water and not tell the teacher and and is thirsty or something, my mom said “welcome to the next twenty-nine years of your life!” HA! I just love my mom! So I know I will be having many more times where I have to trust others with MY baby…. so grateful that Ava is God’s girl and I am not doing this alone! Phew and Amen!

Okay it is almost 11:30. Wonder what Ava is doing? Usually on Tuesdays I have bible study, we are doing Beth Moore’s Breaking Free. This morning was a bit too nutty so I missed today.  I guess I’m off to play a bit with Austin, clean up, and workout (almost five months post partum, but better late than never!) 

Last week when Ava was running around the house making bigger messes than the mess of a house I was trying to clean up at that moment I yelled to Greg “AHHH, I can’t wait until mother’s day out starts next week!”  Now my song is “I can’t wait until 2:00 when I get to pick up my baby girl!”