Day Two Hundred Twenty Four

The First Day Of School--Start To Finish


Shelby, the reluctant third grader, poses for a first full day of school picture before making the long trek to the school building (which you can see directly behind her). She's got that "Aw, man! I can't believe this is happening to me!" look on her face.

Elijah, the dutiful little brother, has said his goodbyes to his big sister, grabs Eddie the striped kitten, and heads back inside where mini waffles and Scooby Doo await.

Elijah attended the open house for Mother's Day Out this morning and met his new teachers. For lunch, while his sister slaved away at school, he pigged out on a cheeseburger and apple fries at Burger King, then did some heavy climbing on the BK playground. It's a tough life, but somebody's gotta do it!

This was the weirdest and kind of saddest thing we saw at the BK playground. Elijah was the only kid in there and put his Crocs in the rack. But there was this one little pink sneaker just sitting in there all by itself.

I thought this was odd because it's an expensive Converse All Star tennis shoe (sneaker if you grew up in the fifties). Probably belonged to a three or four year old little girl.

Neil and I kept calling to Elijah to go down the slide. He called back to us that "There's something in here." I immediately flashed on the kid in The Shining (by Stephen King) who encountered "something" inside a big drainage pipe. And there was that one little Converse sneaker left in the shoe rack.....I was totally creeped out. Then Elijah called "It's a wasp." Oh well. I have an over active imagination sometimes. He did eventually go down the slide.

After lunch, he was down for the count for a couple of hours in my bed, then wandered into the living room and crashed again on the floor.

Time for Shelby to come home! He ran to greet her.

The devoted little brother watching for his beloved big sister to come home from her first day of school.

Here she comes, crossing the street to Granny's house. The school day finally came to an end!

Elijah gets left holding the bag as they march toward Granny's house where there will be Popsicles and mindless television after a day spent quite possibly growing some new brain cells.

As a tired and flushed face Shelby grabs the remote to channel surf, Elijah sits down next to her and asks, "How was your day, Shelby?" It was the sweetest thing, and it totally made my day.