Earth-shaking start to Kindergarten!

The first day of Kindergarten is now tucked away in our memories. It went very well (except that part about the massive earthquake we had in the middle of the first day of school!).

Mari has been so super excited about Kindergarten. I think it confused her at first when we made the decision to start a year early because I had always told her she had to be 5 to start K. But after a couple "practice" days in her K class, she was more than ready to hop right in and could care less if she was the youngest in the class.

We keep a calendar on the wall to mark off the days and help us keep track of upcoming events (so when she asks me 100 times when we are going to the beach, I can tell her to go count the days). Here she is posing with her calendar....the schoolhouse sticker doesn't stick as well because school was originally supposed to start after Labor Day but they decided to move it forward 2 weeks (so I had to move the sticker!). This worked out great for us because it shortened the wait time (she was SO excited) and also alleviated the problem of our beach trip interfering with the start of school.
I'm guessing this will be the first in a series of pictures....hopefully, I will do this every year!

Doesn't she look super grown up?? I almost lost it here. I did okay with taking her this morning. I had a huge meltdown last week so I was better able to handle my emotions today. I had to drop her off in the K classroom on Thursday because we beat her preschool teacher to school. This is not too unusual but when I saw her name on her seat and that the classroom was ready for her, I lost it! She saw her name on the table and was said "Do I start today, Mommy?!?!" And I said "NO!!!!" I wasn't ready. But I'm glad I got those emotions out of the way early.

Cannot believe that my little fairy-hater, superhero-lover picked out a Princess backpack!

Puh-lease Mommy, stop taking pictures and take me to school!!

I made her take one last picture outside of school. She was being silly by that point and was pretending she was a pirate...."Argh, Matey!"

When we walked into school, she suddenly became shy and attached herself to my leg. But once we got into her class she saw a couple of friends that had taken the summer off and she was thrilled to see them again. And her best friend was dressed almost identically to her (same plaid, but in shorts and exact same polo shirt) and she nearly knocked Mari down hugging her. They kind of did that hugging/jumping thing, ran out of the classroom to give their preschool teacher a hug and then ran back in. I got a "Bye Mom, I love you!" and I was back in the car kind of feeling breathless.

Luckily, I had a busy morning at work to keep my mind off of the day and I had just slowed down and was starting to feel a little teary when the whole world started shaking. EARTHQUAKE!!! It was surreal. We were just kind of sitting there looking at each other, afraid to ask one another if they had felt anything. It was a 5.8 centered about 70 miles from us. It was scary given that I work on the second floor of a 3 story building. I was worried about being the middle part of a sandwich. It was all I could do to finish working the next 90 minutes before school let out.

It was all okay in the end. Everyone was safe and no damage. And Mari didn't seem to care about the earthquake.

She had a great day at school. She said it was "WAY easy" and that she did pretty good with listening but maybe not so good with staying in her seat. Which is exactly how I knew her day would go.