First Day of School!!!!!!!!!!!!

Robin started Pre-Kindergarten today!

Packing up his backpack to take with him.  I had him carry his allergy-safe backup snacks to give to his teacher.

Liam saw all this and wanted his backpack too, so Robin helped him pack his monkey blanket and put it on.  What a good big brother.

About a month ago, we made a paper chain to make a "visual calendar," and Robin removed a link every day so he could see how close school was.  Removing the last link of the chain today.

The obligatory "first day" shots

And more with the little brother happily joining in.

Walking up to school

Finding his coat/backpack hook

Making a crayon with his name on it, which he will use to sign in from now on.

They had extras, so they graciously let Liam scribble all over one of them.

Putting the stuff he made into his backpack to take home

Playing on the playground a bit after school

Robin, and together with Liam, outside the school

Liam actually had a bit of a difficult morning.  We made pancakes for breakfast, which are usually limited to the weekends, but special day=special breakfast.  They were even more special, because they had chocolate chips in them.  Now, pancakes are a food we can generally count on them to inhale, meaning that we don't have to worry about them taking too long to eat.  However, Liam lost his steam after his first pancake.  What's going on?  When I finally asked him if he wanted to go to school, too, he nodded his head with a pout.  So he's old enough to notice that something is going on, and that it doesn't include him.  Poor guy.  I tried to reassure him that he and I were going to be doing fun things while Robin was gone, but he still pouted and didn't finish his breakfast.

Once at the school, Liam hung up his backpack just like Robin, and tried to make himself at home.  We were extracting him okay when we needed to leave, until he decided to play on a scooter in the playground and then fell off and skinned his knee.  Cue tears.  We took him to the car and cleaned him up, then got him buckled in and started to leave, although he was still putting up quite a fuss.  At this point, Liam started shrieking "Where Robin?" and pointing to Robin's empty carseat.  Apparently, three months is long enough to forget that Robin goes to school a few mornings every week.

Liam was upset the whole way home, and the irony was that with the skinned knee, we didn't know how much of that he would've done anyway.  Again, poor guy.  He moped a bit, and reluctantly helped me water my garden, and only perked back into his normal self once we headed out to his storytime--but the backpack stayed on his back the entire time we were out today, until we finished picking Robin up from school.  The epitome of the adoring little brother!