Back to School

Ryan was solely responsible for seeing the kids off on their first day to school.  He actually handled the entire first week, since I was in Denver for Jeffrey's wedding.  We skyped A LOT during this time so I could help pickout outfits, encourage nervous kids, and talk him through packing lunches.  Of course, being the over-preparer that I am, I had close washed and organized, lists for dinner and lunches, and backpacks ready to go, but there was still lots of Skype-ing.  I haven't even mentioned the step by step hair fixing tutorials that I gave to Ryan before he left.
So after all that preparation and hard work, he sends me these pictures on the morning of the first day...

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I seriously cried.  First days are emotional for moms, especially pregnant moms.  I asked Ry if he maybe could have bribed the children, just so they could look happy for the pictures and I could feel OK about things.  He said I was lucky I got any pictures at all.  I guess it wasn't as bad as it looked.  Elsie was mad for about 5 seconds, then she snapped out of it and no one could even remember what she was upset about.  Carver was nervous about finding out who his teacher was (in the Dutch system, you don't find out who your teacher will be until you show up at school for the first day.  Even though my kids go to the international school, it still follows the rules of the Dutch system).  It's tough, because Carver likes a little heads up when it comes to new situations.  By sheer luck, he got his same teacher from last year - one who we both really liked and were comfortable with.  In the end, everyone was off to a pretty good start.

Then I get a call from Ryan that one of our dear sweet children spent a good portion of the first two days of school in the director's (or principal's) office.  Can you guess who it was?  This dear sweet Junie B. Jones-like strong willed child, who shall remain nameless in this public forum, got into a few power struggles with her (or his) teacher in the first few days.  Luckily, everything was ironed out pretty quickly, but I was definitely feeling apprehensive about my decision to ship the kids back to Holland without me.  Looking back, I can see that these were all just normal little hiccups in the lives of these children, and had I not taken pictures to document everything they probably would've been easily forgotten.  I like to remind myself, though, that one day all of these strong personalities will serve my children well as successful adults and functioning members of society.  Probably.