First day of Kindergarten!

5:52 am: Roll over, peek at clock. Crap, alarm goes off in 8 minutes.

5:56 am: Give up and get out of bed.

6:02 am: My brother and his kids call, all very wide awake and very loud. I mumble at them for a few minutes and then tell him he has the wrong number. They called to wish Kate a happy first day but I had to tell them that she wasn't getting up until 6:30 so I would relay the message.

6:30 am: Begin the waking process with Kate. She was not pleased. It took me about 5 minutes just to get her to sit up on her cot that she sleeps on when she comes into our bedroom because she's not allowed in our bed anymore. Another 5 minutes passed before she sort of stood up.

6:45 am: Threaten the child to try to get her to eat some sort of breakfast while she makes groaning and whining noises at the table. I explained to her that this is why she needs to go to sleep when Mommy and Daddy say it's time to go to sleep!! Meanwhile Nick has half of his lunch made, his oatmeal is getting cold on the stove and he's got his laptop out trying to fix some major issue at work that naturally had to break on this, of all, mornings. I get her lunch box and backpack all squared away while she eats. Receive a text photo of Kylie and Logan. Awww.

7:00 am: Time to brush teeth, fix hair, and get dressed. Clothes were already picked out so no fighting there. She's finally excited and jumping around. Sometime during all of this I inhale my protein shake.

7:10 am: Run out onto the front porch and take a few photos. Remembered at the last minute to grab the Class of 2028 t-shirt that I made for her to wear on every first day of school until she graduates for a photo op. She wants to take a picture in front of the garage for some reason.

7:15 am: Back out of the driveway in Daddy's car and begin our trek to the school. Lots of walkers and lots of traffic. I had spoken to a friend about the best approach since her little guy was in kinder last year and she gave me some tips. We parked in the appropriate spot and made our way up to the school.

7:22 am: Mandy sends me a photo of Kate when she was somewhere around 18 months old and makes me cry for the first time of the day. Really??? She has payback coming!

7:27 am: We make it into the cafeteria where her class is all sitting in the designated spot. Parents are everywhere, but I am the only one it seems who came dressed in her work out clothes today. Look, ladies, I know about half of you are going to eventually start showing up in your yoga pants and hat hair, I just did it on the first day so as to set the bar where it needed to be. No need for you to all put on make-up today, for crying out loud! Why would you want me to feel so out of place?

Sometime around 7:30 we began the walk down to her classroom, parents and kids and her tiny little teacher, who kind of disappeared as we walked down the hallway. Seriously, she's so little.

7:40 am: Kate has now put her backpack in her cubby, given her tiny teacher a Starbucks gift card to ensure that she will be the favorite (ha ha - that's right, suckers) and it sitting at her table about to begin coloring. I look at Nick and suggest that we just stand right there, off to the side, all day long. He says no.

It's time to go. This is when it really hits me. I have to leave her here now, with this tiny little lady, and let her grow up just a little bit today. So the tears come. I gave her a kiss and quickly turned away so she wouldn't see mommy be upset. My sunglasses came on, and I made my way out of the building looking like Stevie Wonder as the tears built up. As soon as I got outside I had to lean against the wall for a second and Nick gave me a big hug.

"We really just did that." he said.
Yes, we sure did.

He headed straight to work from there and I walked home, adding a few extra streets to get my exercise in for the day. I didn't cry the whole way, maybe just the first quarter of a mile or so. Now I'm home, listening to the clock tick until I can go pick her up!