First day at Kindy!

Today was Ethan's first day at Kindergarten. I took a few photos before we left, he was pretty excited! When we got there he saw Flynn, a boy who used to go to Hannah's House (preschool), so the two of them started playing with the toy dinosaurs together. I stayed and talked to Flynn's mum Sarah for awhile, and then Ethan's friend Devon arrived with his mum Lissa. The boys' faces just lit up when they saw each other! They ran outside to play on the swings and yelled "Bye, Mummy!" at the top of their lungs to Lissa and I :-)

Rob, Tyler and I all went to pick Ethan up at 3.15pm. He was sitting on the mat, and didn't realise he wasn't allowed to get up until the teacher had called his name (a safety thing, to make sure kids go home with the right people). He ran over to me and hugged me, and got a bit upset when he had to go back and sit down again. He didn't really understand, but hopefully next time he'll realise the procedure. He also didn't eat any afternoon tea because the teachers don't remind or encourage the kids to eat, they just leave it up to them to decide if they are hungry or not. So Ethan was really thirsty and hungry when I got there. I told him that next time he could just help himself to his drink and lunchbox if he wanted to. There were quite a few little things like that he didn't know or understand, and I thought the teachers would have helped him a bit more considering it was his first day and he didn't know how things worked!! Oh well, he wasn't too upset by any of it. He had a really great day and is excited about going back tomorrow.

I'm hoping to be able to finish work a couple of hours early each Tuesday (and work from home for a couple of hours at night to make up for it) ... because I really want to be able to pick him up at least once a week. Rob will do it on Mondays (that's his day off) and Nana will be doing it on Thursdays.
As we were walking from our car to the Kindy gate, watching all the mums & dads picking up their kids from the primary school next door, I said to Rob: "This is going to be our life from now on!" ... it was a really strange but nice feeling. Like we're moving onto the "next stage" and although I'm sad that my baby is growing up, it is nice to see him change & mature. I'm so proud of him!