It started off great. He had his backpack and was ready to go:
He was excited to get on the bus.
I hopped in the car and drove to school, to meet his bus and partake in the Kindergarten Parenting Tradition of pictures in the gym.
He had that weary look on his face, with all of the parents buzzing around and the commotion, but with a kiss on the forehead he was off to his classroom.
A couple parents and myself stalked in the hallway, and as I zoomed in out of sight with my camera, I saw him crying silently at his desk, with his hands over his eyes. Not a day in the last four years of daycare, preschool, and pre-K, did David ever cry at school.
It broke my heart, and I wanted to reach out to him but I knew I shouldn't. As the teachers sat the kids at their seats, the assistant whispered something to David and he seemed to come around.
I lurked in the hallway until the principal encouraged us (gently) to leave. Three moms and I walked out with tears in our eyes.
I'm sure he's fine, and it was a case of the nerves getting the best of him... being in a new environment around new people. I remember my first day of school, and what a mixture of emotions. Happy, sad, scared, excited.
But after the events of the last few days it was a lot of tears shed from my end... all the way driving home, and salty tears hitting the keyboard as I type this.
My baby is a big boy now.
