A Dress Rehearsal for Fall

Fresh new notebooks full of blank pages.

Textbooks covered in perfectly folded paper bags.

A brand new Trapper Keeper properly adorned with a girl-appropriate photo. Like this one:

(I'm pretty sure I actually owned this exact one)

The excitement of wondering which friends would be in my classes for the year.

Picking out a new outfit to wear.

Denim. Waning sunlight. Leaves tinged with red and yellow.

A crisp edge to the air.

Oh, I love the beginning of the school year! Is that crazy? I mean, don't get me wrong, I really, REALLY like the start of summer, too. But there's just something so exciting and full of potential about the start of a school year.

So why do I have school on the brain down here, in the middle of summer, in muggy and humid Maryland, where the air is decidedly NOT crisp yet?

Because of this little big guy:

Finn's school offers a "Jumpstart" program for the Kindergarteners, and we more than happily enrolled him. For the next two weeks, he will be at the school from 8:30 until 11:30 everyday, doing some light schoolwork/activities, and meeting some of the teachers and other students. I LOVE that they offer this - not so much for the academic preparation, but for the social aspect. Finn's daycare is a good 10-15 minute drive from our neighborhood, well outside our school district. I know of only one other child in his daycare class that will be attending our elementary school - and with 5 kindergarten classes, the odds of them being in the same class are pretty low. So this will give Finn plenty of friendly faces to see on his first REAL day of school when it arrives in 5 weeks.

One day down, and he seems to be having fun. He was certainly excited about it - this shining face appeared in our bedroom at 5:58 this morning, convinced it was 7 am and time to get up:

I didn't exactly CRY when I dropped him off, though it was close. I had to walk by a few parents with my head down so they wouldn't see my watery eyes. But I figure by the end of the week (M. is on Jumpstart duty next week), I'll be a pro at the school drop off thing, and the first day of his actual Kindergarten class will be a piece of cake. Right?

The only challenging part is entertaining Finn each day once he's back home, as I balance keeping him occupied with my need to work. It was a little rough today, and I'm not terribly proud of the amount of TV I let him watch so that I could be on my computer. He's never been exactly KNOWN for his ability to entertain himself - quite the opposite, in fact. But we'll manage, I'm sure. Though I am thinking that perhaps taking the week at home with Finn that also coincides with an upswing in the, ahem, lady hormones, was not such a good idea. Live and learn.