The First Day of School

Carlie and Erinna both started school today. Erinna is a senior. She took awesome senior photos with Amy and I can't wait to see the rest.

But Erinna is a young adult, and my big kids don't like to be the subject of my blog. So that's all I am going to say about that. She's going to have a crazy/busy/awesome year.

Carlie, on the other hand, is still young enough to be denied access to my blog, so I can talk about her all I want. She started middle school today. I was absolutely traumatized. How pathetic is that?
You've got to remember, she has gone to the same small Catholic school since she was three years old. That's eight years in the same building. And now? Middle school. At a public school. Twice the size of her old school. Also? It's not just a middle school. This school serves grades 6-12. Which means that when I dropped my baby off for sixth grade today, we were greeted by grown men who still happen to be in high school. Seriously.

I had neglected to pay for her school lunches at orientation, so I had to go into the building with her this morning. The place was chaos. Huge teenagers everywhere, and because my shorty is literally a shorty, her face is, like, right at backpack height of all of these gargantuan teens. She was being battered by backpacks as we made our way to the cafeteria.

And then? She fell down the fucking stairs. I kid you not. Fell. Down. The. Stairs. On the first day of school. She wasn't hurt, but she was stunned and a little teary eyed. When she regained her composure, the only comment she made was, "Thank god no one saw me fall." (We were the only ones in the stairwell, because apparently i am the only parent who didn't pre-pay for lunches. yay me.)

I had a hard time leaving here there. She looked like a preschooler amongst all of those tweens and teens. I'm no rookie, I've been leaving kids at school since the early 90s, but this one was especially rough for me. This is a year of a lot of transition for our family, but especially for Carlie. We've moved out of the home that she was born into, we're living in a very small condo, she's basically gone from being one of four to an only child.

And now a new school for the first time ever. Oh! And she's riding the school bus home. She's never ridden a school bus before. Ever. The bus got her home at 5 p.m. FIVE P.M. In another couple of weeks, it'll be dark by 5 p.m. Oy.

And what about me? I need to form a whole new mom posse. At her old school, I had no less than a dozen people on speed dial that I could call if I were running late or needed any kind of help with transportation or a missing lunch, whatever. But now? I've got very limited back up. Plus? At her old school, I would have spent 20 minutes hanging out in the parking lot chatting with friends, and then ended up having coffee somewhere with someone. Today? Nada.

What? Now I'm supposed to make new friends? Honestly, I'm too old for this shit.