The First Day of School

Today was Hutton's first day of first grade. New school, new teachers, new bus driver. He had half-day kindergarten last year, four days a week. This year, six hour days, five days a week. I was nervous about it. Would he be annoying the teacher from the moment he entered, asking her over and over again, "What time is lunch?" and "When are we going to get lunch?" Or would he only ask once and wait patiently until lunchtime?

While Hutton was at school, Harrison and I had lots of fun. Oh wait, no we didn't. We went first to the Department of Licensing to get my driver's license renewed. [Interestingly, this is listed as a "Driver License" online. I guess they didn't want to mess with that apostrophe. Is it one driver's license, or is this every drivers' license? Hmm. Just take out the apostrophe and S!] The renewal process involved taking a number, sitting several minutes, having my vision checked, then taking a new picture, which looks ass-tastic. Why does my hair always have to look like greasy animal pelts when I'm getting my license picture taken? I washed it! Really! Well, maybe it won't look so heinous when the real license arrives in the mail in a week. Yeah, I'm holding my breath on that one.

Next in our morning tour of fun: the vehicle emissions test station. Yes, my car had to be tested in order to renew my (overdue) car registration. (Did I mention my license also was overdue, expiring on my birthday two weeks ago? Whoops!) Hang out in another line, this time in my car. At least this time I got to listen to the radio.

Next up: Another Department of Licensing. This one for the car registration tabs. I didn't want to risk getting pulled over with expired plates, so I stood in yet another line to get new tabs, rather than do the easy thing and mail them a check. While Harrison and I stood in line, a man with a prosthetic leg came in. Can you guess who pointed at the man and said really loudly, "Look, Mommy! Look at that!" Sigh. I told Harrison it's not polite to point at people, though I'm sure I would've been intrigued by a prosthetic leg and pointed at the man when I was four, too.

After all that fun? I took Harrison to McDonald's. No further comment.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hutton got off the bus around 3:20, and I asked him about his day. He didn't tell me much, but I opened his backpack and found a wondrous half-sheet of paper. It was a grid, filled with stars. Down one side were listed the activities of the day, and across the top were the proper behaviors expected of Hutton. Every single grid had a star in it! Twenty-eight stars! I high-fived Hutton and told him how happy, proud, excited, etc. I was that he'd earned all of his stars on the first day of school. Of course, that just means he's set the bar very high for himself this year! We'll see.

Harrison gets the day off tomorrow -- he gets to go back to preschool in the morning, instead of running more fun and exciting errands with Mommy.