Kindergarten

After we had been there fifteen minutes and Sam had sat patiently coloring a fish at one of the tiny tables while I explained the peanut allergy and not having a dad to his just-out-of-college teacher, I stepped in to the hall to look for the after-school classroom, and he came running out to me.

"Mommy, Mommy!  A huggie and a kiss!" he cried, his arms outstretched.

"I'm not leaving," I told him.  "It's just orientation.  It's not school yet.  Tomorrow is school.  This was just to meet your teacher."

"Oh."  And he went back to the table and finished coloring his green and purple fish.

A newly tanned and freckled though clearly overwhelmed Miss Kay helped him hang it on the wall outside the classroom, and then she showed him his seat and where to put his nap mat and where to hang his backpack before we headed out of the room and down the hall to say hello to his teachers from last year.  Only after he saw Mrs. Hefel, who squatted on the floor next to him and asked how he was doing, did he seem to relax.

For weeks he'd been nervous, afraid he wouldn't like his new teacher, anxious that he wouldn't have any friends in his class. 

On his actual first day I asked him to show me which classroom was his and he walked right in and unpacked the crayons and markers and folders in his backpack and hung it on the #9 hook and posed for a picture.  He found his seat at the third table and he waved to Luke at table 2 and Morgan at table 1.  Then he waved to me and said "Okay, goodbye Mom," before I was even ready to leave.