First Day of SK

I know I'm late to the whole First Day of School game, but honestly - Liam's first day of school was today! He's in the Monday/Wednesday/alternate Fridays class this year, and on Wednesday the JKs had their orientation. Today was the first day for the SK kids. (Our school runs JK/SK split classes, and the kids are typically kept in the same class with the same teacher for both years.)
I had told Liam ahead of time that the first day of school is one time when moms all over the world are allowed to subject their kids to lots of picture-taking. At first, I thought he was not going to cooperate - he was giving me the eye-roll and the "But I AM cooperating!" argument while crossing his eyes and picking his nose. But he did sneak in a few winning smiles. I got a cute shot of the two of us together...
...and a few adorable ones of him. These melt my heart and if I hadn't just placed a photo order yesterday, I think one of these could very well have been hanging on our dining room wall. Maybe next time.
And with that, we were off to school. I took a half-day off today and stayed home with him long enough to take him to school myself. Then I went into the office for the middle of the day, and left early enough to pick him up again. He will be going to the Before & After program most of the time, but I wanted to be with him on his first day.
He was neither happy nor sad about school starting again... just rolled with it. He actually did seem pretty happy this morning, and as we set off from the house. But I maybe sensed a bit of trepidation as we entered the back of the school yard. The bell rang shortly after we got there and he lined up along the fence with his new classmates... not a single familiar face from last year. I'd thought there was one boy from last year's class, but Liam tells me I'm wrong.
As they were lining up I wasn't sure if I sensed some uneasiness from him. There were two kids in the other class lined up on the other side of the fence who were both crying their eyes out. I kept willing Liam not to notice. I'm not sure if he did or not.
The kids may have been different, but the teacher was the same. Thank goodness for Mrs. Garrow! She seems cut out to be a kindergarten teacher and I am very thankful that we got her again this year.
The kids were asked to give their parents a wave and a smile, pick up their backpacks, and go find their spots in the cloakroom. So with that, Liam disappeared into the door.
I was pretty sure he would do OK at school today and Mrs. Garrow confirmed it when I came to pick him up. I think he was pretty quiet for her today, but I'm sure she was expecting that!
He must have had a good day because once we started walking home, he got so excited about what he was bringing home in his backpack that we had to stop right there on the school field so that he could dig it out to show me.
This morning, as I was driving home from the pool, I noticed a rainbow in the sky - odd, since we hadn't had any rain overnight. I made it home before the rainbow evaporated and I called Liam over to the window to see it. I told Liam that was his first day of school good-luck rainbow and that it was bound to be a great day when it got off to a start like that. So he had his good-luck rainbow mentally tucked away in case he needed it today... but I think he managed just fine without it.
As for me, I made it through the day without any tears, too.