A Different Sort of First Day

Posted Aug 25, 2010 by Courtney Cairns Pastor

Updated Aug 30, 2010 at 12:37 PM

Last year, on the first day of school, I was home on maternity leave. It was the first First Day I had missed covering in nine years.

This year, I found myself at Ben Hill Middle School, watching preteens bound out of SUVs and buses, their backpacks stiff, their uniforms pressed. (Video) I thought of my own little guy, who was experiencing a first day of his own. He moved into the 1-year-old room at his day care on Tuesday.

I wouldn’t have thought this would feel like a big transition, but it did. He is required to wear shoes now, which we had avoided because of research that says kids’ feet develop better without them as they learn to walk. But there I was in Target Monday night amid the back-to-school madness (like Christmas shopping but way less festive), trying to cram tiny leather shoes onto his pudgy feet.

His dad packed him up Tuesday morning and brought him to day care, sharing our worries with his new teacher—how can he fit in with the “big kids” when he can’t walk? Where will he nap without his infant room crib? Does he need a sippy cup? Is he really going to eat sloppy joes? Is he going to—gasp—go out on the playground?

They reassured us for now. But I suspect we’ll have many more of these First Day conversations. When he starts VPK. When he starts kindergarten. And probably when he starts middle school, high school and college. Which everyone tells us comes up way too fast.