Eliana's first day of Kindergarten

A little bit of background on last month and this month: I have been very busy at work lately (I'll give you a hint why - I work with newborns and you know what happened about 9 months ago? The Holidays...). I have been staying late most days that I work, picking up extra shifts, and working all of my call shifts.  David has also moved off of his easier, lighter schedule of research block and now is in his busier clinic block.  Laney then decided that after mostly sleeping through the night for several months, now that she is a year old, she should start getting up at 3am every night thus making me very tired.  In case this wasn't enough to keep me busy, I crazily decided to make both Eliana's and William's Halloween costumes from scratch.  Like taking fabric and transforming it into a pair of pants - which up until about two weeks ago I had no idea had to do that.  So this overambitious project of mine has left this blog sadly outdated.  Now I will try to back track.  I feel like first day of school pictures have lost some of their appeal since it is ALMOST NOVEMBER! But please indulge me because I still think they are pretty cute.

Way back in August, Eliana started kindergarten at Windermere Elementary.  My big girl is growing up! She is in Mrs. Salmon's PM kindergarten class.  I requested the PM class because the afternoon is when Laney naps and Will sometimes naps, so it can be quite boring at our house around 1pm.  This way we could do fun stuff together in the morning and then while her siblings nap, Eliana could go do more fun stuff at school.  As an added bonus, we get to avoid the morning rush for another year.

Eliana rides the bus to and from school, which made me very nervous at first, but she absolutely loves it.  Originally, she was to be picked up from the end of our driveway to go to school (since it is only kindergartners on the bus at that time) but dropped off at the end of our block on the corner bus stop.  For the week before school started, we practiced walking home from the bus stop.  We would walk to the end of the street, and I would pretend to be the bus driver dropping Eliana off. Then we would all walk home together (Eliana leading the way) while I questioned her about different scenarios like what she would do if a dog came by or if a stranger approached her, or if our neighbor invited her over to play.  She knew just what to do - come straight home and not stop for anything.  Plus I could also see the bus stop from the end of my driveway and would be able to watch her the whole time she walked home.  The first day that she rode the bus home, Will and I met her at the bus stop (David was home that day with Laney), and we all walked home together.  The second day, I stood at the end of the driveway planning on watching her walk home from the bus stop.  Except when the bus stopped at the corner, no one got off. Eliana was actually the only kid at that bus stop, and I thought, "Oh no, either she forgot to get off because she didn't see me or the bus driver is not going to let her off without me at the corner." Sure enough, the bus continued down the street then stopped in front of my driveway and let her off.  Her bus driver said that since she was the only kid at the stop anyway, she would just change the stop location to my house.  Perfect! One less thing to worry about.  I was pretty excited about that.

So since starting kindergarten, Eliana says her favorite part of school is recess.  Her best friend is Maddie M.  And her favorite "special" is Library.  We've already had our first parent/teacher conference which went great.  I hope she always enjoys school this much!

First day of school!

Waiting for the school bus on the second day of school (kindergartners have to be dropped off on the first day).

There she goes...

The first time Eliana rode the bus home, Will rode his bike to the bus stop (thus the helmet) and we waited for Eliana to get dropped off.  When Will spotted the bus, he started clapping for joy at Eliana coming home.  So cute!  These two fight a lot when they are together, but boy does he miss her when she is gone.

She made it home!

For a while, Will wanted to be at the door every time the bus picked her up.  Once he was playing in his room and I said "The bus is here!" to Eliana, and Will came shooting out of his room to the front step.  He did not want to miss saying goodbye!!