My Not So Perfect Memorable First Day of School

No matter how much planning and prepping we do to make the first day back-to-school special and memorable, something always seems to go wrong. It is the not so perfect moments that remain in our memories.  My morning started off with my my daughter forgetting to turn her alarm of at 4:00 AM  while she was getting ready for work, she was in the bathroom , the alarm in her room- you get the the picture.  I get up early because I know I have a ton of stuff to do. Just as I sit down to my computer the power goes out.  It comes back on, but I don't have tome to wait for my computer to turn on and load my programs and such now.  So I go to work, tired, frustrated and not feeling too well.  I'm just thankful I had already dried my hair.  So far the only thing going right that morning was my hair.

So now that home was already starting my day off wrong, what more could go wrong? Well, remember we always remember those not so perfect moments.  That first bell chimed.  yes chimed.
Think chimes as in the movie Grease.  That is what our new bells sound like.  The bells chime and I open my door. Sure I remember opening the door to greet those eager kindergartners with their backpacks almost as big as they are.  I remember a few moms and dads snapping photos with cell phones, but I couldn't tell you which kid was first in line or who had the biggest smile.

What I can tell you is life happens and you just have to roll with it.  This year our staff was doing summersaults on our first day.  We have a brand new student information system.  There were a few hiccups.  This was to be expected.  We also had a surge of students move and others enroll.  All of this meant a late night for the administrators of shuffling class lists.  This was the first year that class lists were not posted.  Parents were notified by a phone call.  However, if they didn't answer their phone or had changed their number, they didn't no where their child needed to go on the first day of school.

I printed what I thought was the most current version of my student roster, put out my name tags and lanyards and opened my doors.  In walked my new class.  My roster had 15 students, but I knew that would change as some students weren't completely enrolled yet.  A few more arrived with post-it notes with their names.  We quickly grabbed some cardstcok and made them some not so fancy name tags.  For my co-workers who know me, they know how much this was killing me.  I like everything to match and be printed.

At recess time I realized I had forgotten my sunglasses-now this is something I MUST have with my vision. So there I was on the playground not seeing a darn thing.  Thank goodness my son was already  home from his 7:00 AM college class.  He quickly brought them to me. Phew- crisis overted.

When it came time to go to lunch, we noticed our kids who were eating hot lunch were having pizza from Costco- umm I want hot lunch too.  This year we are cooking food on campus.  OOPS, our ovens didn't work. I guess no one checked them during the summer.

At the end of the day all my kids made it to where they were supposed to go, so one cried or wet their pants, so to that made it a huge success.  With the help of a friend I was able to take a first day photo of every student. When the kids left, many said they had a really fun day.  So, although it was the perfect day that I had planned it was a memorable first day of kindergarten.