First Day of School

Our daughter enjoyed her private Christian classical school "with a homeschool feel" so much last year that she's been eager all summer for school to begin again.  She could not wait to see all her friends again and sit under the same amazing 3rd-5th grade teacher she had last year.  The school doubled in size until they reached maximum new expanded facility capacity, so lots of new teachers were hired, but she was glad to get to stay with the same teacher.

Her classroom now has an awesome reading loft where she will surely spend as much time as possible.  

Reading loft

Lockers and tables

The initial plan was for our son to continue being homeschooled while our daughter attends this school.  When we received a written offer on our house and began making plans to move, we realized that I would be driving our daughter to/from school for 3-4 hours a day leaving little time for homeschooling.  We did not want our son to spend that much time in the car each day, so we enrolled him as well.  The offer fell through on our house, and I began dreading the thought of sending him to school since he does so well homeschooling.  He did not like the decision at all.  I thought taking him shopping for new back-to-school supplies, clothes, shoes, backpacks, and lunch bags (all of which he chose in camouflage print) would help get him excited for school, but he was still stubbornly resistant.

Happy, encouraging sister & her grumpy brother on the 1st day of school

Thankfully, his sister, who gave him lots of words of encouragement and filled his backpack with stuffed animals and fun toys to cheer him up that day, got him to smile for one, albeit only one, picture.

When I took him to his classroom, he pressed his face into my shoulders, refusing to look at anyone.  Then the tears began to flow and a look of anger swept across his face.

Tears

Anger

I raced out of the room as my own waterworks began.  What had I done?  I was so ready to rush in there and bring him home so that I could homeschool him all the way through graduate school.

When I took my daughter to her class next, another parent compared the first day of school after being homeschooled to breastfeeding and suggested that I go back into the classroom and comfort him, slowing weaning him away from me.  Yet, my instinct told me that I needed to leave and let the teacher take control of the classroom.  It was hard to ignore her advice, but I crawled into my vehicle and sobbed.  Both my husband and mother assured me of what I already knew in my heart, that he would be just fine, but it was still very hard to believe it at that moment.

When I picked him up from school later that afternoon, he gave me a huge grin and said, "Mom, email Dad right now and tell him he made the right choice in sending me to this school.  I had a great day and can't wait to come back tomorrow."  Thank you, Lord, for answering our prayers.   The next day, he told me we should have sent him last year.  So in less than 24 hours, he went from being angry at me for sending him to this school to being angry at me for not sending him sooner.

Photo taken immediately after I picked them up from their first day of school