"first" day

There's 16 days left of school out here. Well...15, now. School's almost out for the day. I took Scooter to her first day of school today. I would have liked a few more days to kind of get her ready for it (since that job is falling soley on us), but it was better now than later. Ben has to work, and Scooter would have been bored at the house - and unwelcome at daycare. She needs to be in school.

We got to walk around with her teacher a little bit before school, checking out the different hallways, her classroom, and the recess area. Kids were everywhere. The school building itself is much older than Scooter's old school in Omaha, but it's a really good school in a very good school district. The faculty and staff seem to know all the kids there, and the projects and artwork on the walls in the 2nd grade wing were pretty impressive. I hope Scooter is prepared for this.

The cafeteria is set up much like the one in the hospitals where I work. There's a serving counter thing where kids walk by and grab what they want, and then 2 other pods of cold drinks (or yogurt in the morning). All kids have free breakfast if they want it. Then, they wait in one of four lines to check out. There are 2 "cashiers" who supervise the kids punching in their student IDs while they "ring" up what's on their trays. It all gets fed into an online system where parents can add $$ to their kids' meal accounts, but then also monitor what their kids are taking for lunch. It may not be completely accurate as to what they're eating, but it will at least show what they checked out with at each meal - including free breakfast. Pretty interesting (to me).

Scooter was so nervous this morning that she was almost shaking. So scared. More so than she was on her first day of kindergarten. But then again, she was probably better adjusted and more confident in kindergarten than she is today. That was one of the things that her teacher in Omaha noted at conferences this year. I'm hoping that in a couple of months, when she's back with us on a more permanent basis, that she'll again feel secure and confident in herself. This year was a time of uncertainty and stress, and it would have been difficult for a well-adjusted adult to navigate. I think we're making baby steps in the right direction, though. Bubba had Scooter laughing so hard yesterday that Scooter couldn't breathe. I love watching those two interact. He was lost without her, and hopefully, he'll help her find her way now that we're together again.