First day of 1st grade!

Ethan has been counting down to 1st grade since the middle of Kindergarten! He has been so excited and was so happy the day finally arrived. When we were getting ready for his yearly school sign, I asked him this year what he wanted to be when he grew up, he told me he wanted to be a "cooker worker guy" ... also known as a Chef. That's my boy! :)

Looking back over the last two years first day of school pictures, he looks huge! We keep telling him to stop growing.

Flashback to Preschool and then to Kindergarten!

Typical to Neel family fashion (minus Martin of course), we ran a tad bit late on the first day. I assumed just like last year, there would be people in the room taking pictures of their kids in their desk for the first 10 minutes or so the first day. We ran in probably 2 minutes late and it was dead silent and not a parent in sight, which meant, no first day of school showing off his own desk pictures for this little man!

I have been nervous, since starting Kindergarten to be honest, about Ethan starting first grade. It was more than just him going all day long. I was nervous about lunch. I kept telling everyone that it was because he's so dang picky and he won't eat anything and then he'll starve and not focus, so on and so forth. But that was only part of it. Because Ethan is such a high energy, give it all or nothing kind of kid, he either makes other kids nervous or intimidates them, or they think he's weird or something ... but he has quite often been excluded when it comes to social situations. He is probably the most social kid I've ever met, but because he's all over the place, he's often not included. I was worried about him having any friends at all to eat lunch with or play with at recess. That first week was rough for me. Nobody would sit with him or play with him, and and older boy in our neighborhood started to bully him. Thankfully, even though he still doesn't always have someone to play with at recess (sometimes just because he wants to play alone) he seems happy and has said he's eaten lunch with at least one person every day. I hope he figures school out quickly and is able to make some more friends.

When we went to back to school night to meet his teacher, we saw this cute little man outside of the classroom door.

Welcome to 1st grade Ethan! I can't believe you are old enough to go to school all day. I hope you have an awesome year!