The first day of school can be hard for some families, I’m not just talking about the first day of kindergarten or senior year. For me it was always bittersweet. We had children to raise them into adults that contribute to society, but the first day of school was always a reminder that time they are in our home is getting shorter.
We took photos of the first day every year. Those photos show their physical growth and the times that they were in different schools or together at the same school.
The one first day of school I remember from my childhood is 4th grade. I was in a new school, same town but a new school, I didn’t know anyone and it rained all day. Something that is fairly unusual in Aurora, Colorado at that time of year. I sat alone at lunch, read a book during recess in the classroom and remember being so sad when my grandma picked me up that afternoon and wanting to go back to my old school. I did after Christmas, it was great.
As I was growing up we didn’t do anything special for the first day of school, no photo or dinner. That’s okay. Things were different. I was being raised by a single mom and film still had to be developed, so choices were made. I’m not hurt or upset, it’s just different.
Jack of All Trades and I had a digital cameras so we could take as many photos as the card would hold, and we did. While I can see the pictures in my head, I can’t find many of them. Though they were all on cards, that doesn’t mean they got transferred before the tech changed. I have included some below, in chronological order.
We didn’t do a special dinner on the first day of school, for multiple reasons. By the time all the children were in school, they were often in different schools with different start days and they started on Wednesday or Thursday and the school in Agate had EVERY Friday off. What we did instead is dinner on Friday of the first full week to celebrate surviving the first week. After we moved to the country this was moved to lunch on Saturday so that we could continue to go to our favorite celebration restaurant, Senor Rics.
