Big Kid Now

Okay, so here's the thing...I haven't blogged in a while. Technically, it's been about a month. It was a busy month. Emma and James went to Charleston to visit my parents, Josh and I went to the lake for our anniversary, Emma had her last day of pre-k, Emma was a flower girl in Alison and Tony's wedding, and then Emma went to stay with JD and Honey and then Nana. These posts will come...later. 

 Today's event was too important to push back. Today my little girl started kindergarten! 

Here she is...my big kid

In her new class with her seat next to Sam and across from Anderson.  I'm so thankful that she has these two boys in her class so that she has some familiar faces.  We walked in the room this morning and we heard a loud, "EMMA is here!" which came from her good buddy, Sam.  He sure knows how to make a girl feel welcome.  She had no trouble saying goodbye to me.

During orientation on Monday morning, their new teacher read them a story called The Kissing Hand.  What a touching story about a raccoon that was starting kindergarten the next day but was anxious and nervous.  The mommy raccoon took her little boy's left hand, spread out his fingers and kissed his hand.  He felt her love and knew that any time during the day that he was sad or missing his mom he could feel that kiss in his hand and would remember how she loved him.  After the story, the teacher was so smart to tell the children that she knew they'd all be perfectly fine...but that their mommies may be sad.  She gave them all a heart sticker to give to us this morning.  Right on cue before i dropped her off, Emma took my left hand, spread out my fingers, kissed it and told me she loved me.  Then she put the sticker on me so that I could look at it all day and remember those words.  SWEET!  I wore it all day long.

I picked her up from school and she was all smiles after she crawled into the front seat.  Somehow she looks more grown up here than she did when I dropped her off.

Then she told me she was done posing for pictures and she took the wheel.  I had a flash forward moment of when she would someday get her drivers license and this picture was frozen in my mind.

I know these moments will go by so fast, but I know she's more than ready to grow up.  I ask her to stop growing and she always responds, "You know I can't stop growing...I eat too good."  She's got me there.

After dinner, we celebrated with cookies.  James didn't know or care why we were celebrating, but he was more than willing to partake in the cookie experience.

I look forward to this school year - I know it will be full of new adventures!