holy crap, the bean's a THIRD grader

i don't get why school always starts on weird weekdays.  i mean, back in the day we'd start after labor day, so it made sense that the first day would fall on a tuesday.  but nowadays the kids start early to mid-august, with no holidays to work around, so what's up with that?

whatever.  so on the monday before school started, we headed to campus for the annual "warm-up" morning where you could go and meet the teacher and see your classroom for the year.

the bean was super excited to pore over the class roster and see the names of so many of her friends that she hadn't been in the same room with the previous year.  and each student had a cute little folder with some tips from last year's class:

as more of her classmates trickled in, there was lots of squealing and excitement and friends who hadn't seen each other much over the summer were reunited.  and since we'd been very lax about bedtimes and things during the 3-month break, i was a little concerned about the bean getting to bed and actually falling asleep on time.  and so when i spied a couple of her buddies and their parents, i proposed taking the girls to have lunch, some playtime at home and then a trip to the local trampoline park to wear 'em out.  it just so happened that it worked out perfectly, and the girls were thrilled to spend their last day of vacation together.

we capped it off with some ice cream, because why not:

and luckily, my diabolical plan worked.  she passed out cold as soon as i tucked her in, and was fresh and ready to start a new year the next morning.  the obligatory first day photo:

and we used one of her old cheer bows in her hair:

let's pause for a moment and check out those first day photos over the last few years, shall we?

and let's not forget this one, from her first day of elementary school in the transitional kindergarten class:

oh em gee.  i died a little when i came across that photo.  she was so...tiny!

at school, she indulged me with a photo in front of the school's "first day" backdrop:

plus one at her desk:

one with her parents:

and one more with her sister and their shared special friend.

as soon as we watched her disappear into the building to start learning some stuff, we hopped back into the car and hightailed it outta there.  and where's the first place you go when your kid is safely back at school for the first day of the year?

duh.

a few days later, i was pretty excited when the local news channel contacted me to let me know that they'd be airing that collage of first day photos during an early morning telecast.  i set the DVR to record (because as excited as i am to see my kid on tv, i'm not getting up at 4:30am) and fast-forwarded through most of the broadcast until i finally found it:

she was beyond stoked when i showed it to her.  "i'm famous!" she said.

indeed, child.  indeed you are.