First Day of School - Take Two

A full week went by before Makenna had to go to school again (Sept 14th).  I was kind of surprised at this since her school wasn't flooded, but I guess kids in another area that are bussed to her school were flooded.  I think it was Ninevah area, if I recall.

This time it was a full day and as you can see, we still went with the Hello Kitty theme.

The next day, after school, she had her fist day of dance class - 20 minutes of ballet, 20 minutes of jazz, then 20 minutes of tap.

First Day of School – Kindergarten (9/7/11)

I knew this day was coming and I was dreading it.  We got up bright and early (before 6am) to get our routine down that we scheduled out the night before. 

• Mommy gets up – gets Makenna up and then takes out the dogs while Makenna gets dressed.   
• Daddy gets himself up and ready for work.
• Then Mommy gets lunch together for Makenna (and herself) and feeds all the animals (both human and beast). 
• Daddy comes out and enjoys time with Makenna during breakfast.
• Mommy then gets Makenna brushed (teeth and hair) and daddy gets to take the dogs out for one last bathroom break.
• Shoes on, coats on – time to catch the bus!

Of course there may be a few extra minutes here or there to watch a little bit of cartoons and there’s always time to complain as we’ve found out.

We all made the trip to the end of the driveway, waited for the bus, had hugs and kisses, and I met the very nice bus driver – Sheldon.  He told me the “rules” of crossing in front of the bus – (go to the mailbox where he can make eye contact with myself and Makenna) and then when he gives the signal – a wave of his hand – we cross).  It was now my duty to pass this on and reinforce it with Makenna. 

I had a couple of questions myself.  What times does he expect to be dropping her off in the afternoons (he says around 3:45pm or so) and is he going to wake her up to get off the bus?  I’m serious I told him, I expect her to be half awake by the time the bus gets here.

Off they went and I cried.  Then Chris and I got in our car and went to the school to wait, and on the way, I cried some more.  We wanted to meet with her teacher and see where her classroom was and have a peace of mind.   We went in to the school and then decided to wait in our car for a while as we didn’t want to wait in the “herded” parent’s area.

Well, then close to 8am and her bus still wasn’t there!  Mind you she got on the bus around 7:05 a.m.  So about an hour later (exactly) – in she strolls.  After being so happy to see her alive, we walked her to the classroom.  She found her cubby and her assigned seat.  We introduced ourselves to her teacher, “Mrs. Friend,” – and yes that’s really her name.

We got a couple of pictures and we were on our way.  Chris took me back home and he left for work.  I took the day off to recuperate from the emotions and I wanted to really make sure I would be there when she got home. 

Good thing I did as I was startled by a phone call around 11:30 a.m. from an automated voice telling me that due to the weather (lots and lots of rain) that my child would be let out at 1pm.  I initially thought to myself, “boy if kids are coming home because of some rain – I can’t wait to see how many days I’ll have to take off due to snow!”

Since the bus driver gave me an approximate of 45 – 50 minutes to get home when they would normally leave at 3:05 p.m., I figured that she should be home 1:45 or so.  I went out in the cold wet rain with the dogs at 1:35 and started to wait and wait and wait.  The dogs were shivering and soaked so I took them back in and proceeded to wait some more – with Makenna’s rain boots in hand.
Finally after 2pm the bus showed.  I was a bit miffed but figured that due to the weather, he may have had to go slower than he normally would.  Or at least I hoped.  Otherwise this girl is going to have an hour drive each way every day!  Sure enough when he opened his doors, he had to wake her up.
But she was excited to see me and after a quick change into her boots, down the driveway we went.  I found out much later in the day the true severity of the rains – which you can see some of it in these links:

http://youtu.be/tMGIQoYxEvI
http://youtu.be/t5P5eMfiF3o
http://youtu.be/1O3B1URx_V8

There are many more if you go to Youtube but I thought these would suffice to show you why Makenna’s first day of school was cut short.  Not only that, but she then had a whole week off.  I felt like this girl is going to be so confused as to why she has to go a full day and for more than one day in a row when school starts again.

Here’s some photos of the day:

(Can you tell we're now into "Hello Kitty"?)

Heading down to catch the bus

Meeting the bus driver

Found assigned seat

Returning down the long drive back home (after half a day)

Made it through our first day looking a bit weary 

NYS State Fair 2011

We decided to make another trip to the State Fair this year (Sept. 3rd).  Unfortunately, we chose the last Saturday of the fair to go which also happened to be a very hot, humid day.  As we were there, I thought to myself, didn’t we go last year on a hot and humid day?  Why do we keep torturing ourselves?

Then to look at the grin and smile of my little girl on the roller coaster (kiddie roller coaster) and other rides that I recall why we come...which I would have pictures of if the camera battery didn't die.

This year we also went with my aunt and uncle from RI who came down. 

As a special surprise, we happened to see Crystal Bowersox (crystalbowersox.com) and got close enough to snap a couple of pictures.  I wasn’t willing to stand in line to get a picture with her but this was good enough for me!

I had also seen this on the news about this sand sculpture and it was truly humbling and amazing.  What was really hard was trying to explain it to Makenna.  She kept asking questions and the most simple answer I could give her was that some bad people did a bad thing that killed a lot of people.  Of course she kept asking why and I had no good answer for that.