Caleb's First Day of Pre-K

Today is Caleb's first day of Pre-K.  I laid out his first day of school outfit last night, went over the packet from his teachers, packed his backpack and made his lunch.  I'm pretty sure no other kid in America has this on his lunchbox note from Mom:

 It's a picture of one of his favorite water towers from his water tower book - located in Circle City, NJ.

Caleb said he wanted blueberry muffins for breakfast so being the Martha Stewart that I am, I pulled out a box mix and got to work.  I put the muffins in the left oven (I have a right/left oven instead of top/bottom), set the timer and went to get dressed.  When I heard the timer go off I opened the oven to discover I had preheated the wrong side!  MOM OF THE YEAR.  Both kids were whiny and hungry at this point.  In a low blood sugar moment Caleb even declared, "But you aren't going to feed me anything for breafkast!".   Luckily all was well with the world once I cooked them on the preheated side of the oven:

I was surprised that Caleb cooperated with first day of school pictures.  I think that is mainly because I agreed to let the first picture be of him with a water tower:

After that we took some more obligatory first day of school pictures with an overly forced smile:

We loaded up to go to school and Caleb told us he was excited about school.  When we talked about butterflies in his stomach or feeling nervous, he declared "There are no butterflies in my stomach, just bones!".  When we got to school I prayed with him and then we took some pictures in front of the school.

The school director opened the doors just before 9am and Caleb walked down to the end of the hall to his classroom:

His teachers, Ms. Geralyn & Ms. Susan, really emphasize independence so Caleb unloaded his lunch box, water bottles, backpack and 'checked in' by putting his clip next to his name.  He hardly noticed we were still there and rushed to the center of the room to start building with Duplo blocks.  We had to remind him to wave bye to us!

I felt pretty sure he would be fine going to school, although we are in a new place.  I am thankful that he is a confident and social little boy and enjoys going places.  I did just fine too- although I know this means that for the next 14 years he will be in school all week until he moves away to college.  As the saying goes, the days are long and the years are short!  It seems like only yesterday he was starting Mother's Day Out at his school in Temple.

I can't wait to hear how Caleb's first day went and to see how much he learns, grows and changes this year!