Let the schooling BEGIN!

I didn't post any first day of school pictures, here or on Facebook, simply to be stand-offish. I TOOK pictures, but everyone else was posting them and I don't want to be just like everyone else. So I waited a few weeks, and here they are on the blog! Stand-offish though I may be, it would be silly to post them too much later.

 Patrick started 1st grade and is in Mrs. Byrd's class. He really loves having his own desk, which has a compartment to stow things - he thinks that it SUPER cool. And maybe he's right, I like that same feature in our computer desk! He got a new backpack which is far too big for him, but his backpack from last year, just the next size down, is too small for homework folders. I guess that's just part of growing up, eh, being awkwardly sized.

Eli was excited to see Patrick leave. Patrick started a week earlier than Eli, even though they're at the same school, and Eli was completely nonplussed, perhaps even a little glad, to be missing a brother all day long. 

Here was Eli's first day - he started preschool! He loves his teacher, Mrs. Kim. It seems ridiculous that he is in preschool, he seems so very old to me! Maybe it's because the word "big" is often used to describe both size and level of maturity - both "you're so big, you can reach that tall shelf" and "you're so big, you know how to write you name!" Since Eli is so big physically I think we "big" people tend to get confused about his maturity. I think of him as Patrick's age, as they are the same size and share everything, so this is just one of those helpful reminders to me that I shouldn't actually treat him like Patrick; they are 2 years apart, and 2 years is a lot when you're 4 or 6.