School days!

Well, it's official! Olivia started kindergarten today.

I put my baby on a bus this morning (and only cried a little)...and now I'm counting down the minutes until that bus drops her off at 11:15.

It's so weird to not have her at home. It's so weird to think that she's IN SCHOOL!

And of course, there were a few glitches...

On Friday, the transportation office gave me a bus number and said be at the bus stop (our driveway) 30 minutes before school starts.

So, at 8 a.m. we were outside, waiting for the bus. And another bus with a different number pulled up. The bus driver said it was Olivia's bus -- despite the different number. As the bus pulled away - with my darling daughter sitting in the front seat - I had the thought "Oh my god...what if she's on the wrong bus?!?"

Kevin drove to the school (which is literally 2 1/2 minutes away) and waited for her bus. It arrived and then he actually walked Olivia into her classroom -- which is a relief because Glitch #2 was occurring.

Olivia's teacher told us last week that on the first day of school, both kindergarten teachers and the principal would be outside, gathering the kindergartners together and walking them into their rooms.

Uh, yeah. This did NOT happen. There was no one outside making sure the new students actually made it inside! Kevin said Olivia looked sad and a bit scared when she got off the bus...until she saw him (thank goodness he went over there!!!!). He ended up walking her to her room --- where lo and behold, her teacher was waiting.

Ugh.

And since I am a total control freak, I called the school. This is what they told me (1) the transportation office worked all weekend to get the bus schedules in order and if I called back in an hour they could tell me FOR CERTAIN what our bus number is, and (2) the teacher should NOT have told us that anyone would be meeting the kids coming off the bus, because they all have to be in their rooms for the non-bus riding students.

Can we say total lack of communication? Geesh.

I'll say this again - the school system needs to do a MUCH better job communicating with parents of new students.

Anyway...I cannot wait to hear how her first day was! I'm sure I'll have more to report later. ;)

Update:
Her bus made it here! I say this with some surprise...because the bus actually stopped 1/2 a block away because the driver was looking for the WRONG address! Yeah, thankfully Olivia said "um, I don't live here" and then [according to the driver], they saw me standing on our driveway and he realized where he needed to go. I certainly hope these are just 'day one' glitches.

I asked Olivia how her day was and she said "good". I asked "what did you do today?" and she said "Um, I forget." Ha. She did remember that they went outside and had a snack and she got a red M&M for being good.