We made it!

Mary Grace was up, dressed, and ready to go at 7:05 this morning.  The bus doesn't come until 8:30.  I made her get undressed and take a shower, instead of just staring out the front window impatiently for almost an hour and a half!

Meanwhile, Claire had a total thermonuclear meltdown that Mary Grace was going to school without her.

She felt a little better when she realized that we were going to MG's school, too, after we got her onto the bus.

The bus was 10 minutes late.  BJ said, "Do we have the wrong day?"  I said, "No, I think it's just a first-day-of-school thing."

While we were waiting, we had a photo shoot.

Got some last-minute advice from Daddy:

Then we tried magic:

...and it worked!  The bus came!

Good thing I'm quick with the camera, because she jumped on that bus and disappeared so fast, I almost missed it.  I didn't even have time to cry.

Apparently she met a girl named Grace on the bus, just like Junie B. Jones.

When we got to school, we parked a couple blocks away and walked.  The crossing guard yelled at me.  I'm going to probably learn as much as MG this year.

We finally arrived at room 10, and MG wasn't there!  I sent BJ down one hall with Jack, and Claire and I went down the other to look for her.  I was afraid she'd gotten lost, because the buses drop them off on the opposite side of the school from her classroom.

I got all the way outside and to the second door (I was trying not to panic, even though when I got outside there were no buses out there, and OMG where the hell could she be, panic panic panic!) before BJ called and said he'd found her in the hall that connects hallway #1 and hallway #2.  PHEW!

By the time I got back to class, she was already settled in and coloring.

We just stood there and let her ignore us for a while.  Then the principal came on and said that the parents could proceed to the cafeteria for information on Parent Council and a sibling snack, so we gave her a kiss and left.

She barely looked up from her coloring page.

We walked back to the van

...a little bit sad, but excited for Mary Grace!

Claire, Jack, and I went to the Boo Hoo Breakfast at Chick Fil A.  Daddy stopped at his usual cafe on the way to the office, and apparently found the Woo Hoo Breakfast - a bunch of parents were there celebrating their liberation.

Before I knew it, it was time to pick our big girl up from school.  Looks like she had fun, doesn't it?

We went to the office to run payroll, then we all went to DQ for lunch.  Mommy had a strawberry lemonade, because swallowing anything chunkier than chicken soup still feels like swallowing knives.  It might be a good diet plan, if it weren't for the fact that milk shakes feel so good on a sore throat.

When we got home, the light was better, so I got one more picture in front of our Kindergarten sign.

Is it just me, or does she look older in this one?