Morgan's 1st day of Kindergarten

Morgan was so excited to start kindergarten today. She has met the teacher, and even got to talk with Mrs. Hyer a little bit more the other night at Grandpa's 50th birthday party. (Mrs. Hyer lives in my parents ward & is good friends with them-ironically, my kindergarten teacher also lived in my grandparents ward) Anyway, she woke up early this morning, got dressed, & added stickers to her chart (something we started to make the morning routine go smoothly) & was all set to get her picture taken out front.
Morgan was so anxious & happy at the school. I could tell she was excited to start school, and this is the same school that Daddy went to kindergarten & all of elementary when he was little. So we walked into the school and went to her class.
















After finding her spot at the table, I took one more sweet little picture & I then I said I would be back in a little bit to pick her up. At this point, the tears came... nope, not me... HER! Morgan reacted completly different than how I thought she would. I thought she would be happy, quickly say goodbye, & then color and start talking. Boy was I wrong! I looked over and saw these big crocodile tears forming and her clinging to me saying, "Mommy, please don't go!" I tried to reassure her that everything would be fine, and that Mrs. Hyer would take good care of her. This helped a little, but she still would not let me go. At one point when she was distracted I tried to sneak out of the room. Right when I reached the door, she saw me and came running, while sobbing to me. Now, I had always thought that you just leave them, and they'll be fine, but that is much easier said than done, especially when you're trying to reason with a 5 year old. So Mrs. Hyer said I could stay until they moved to the carpet for a story. I tried to figure out how to leave in the short amount of time without causing any more drama. Morgan kept quietly crying as she colored, checking back every 2 minutes to make sure I was still there. I felt so bad for her. Here she was in a new place with kids she had never met, other than 2 in our neighborhood, and I was just leaving her. My eyes kind of watered because I knew she was hurting, nervous, and afraid, but I knew that she needed to stay & that everything would be fine. I tried to think about other things so she wouldn't see my eyes watering, I'm sure Mrs. Hyer did not want 2 Nuttall girls crying in her class. :) I decided to start quietly talking to the kids at the table, and make new friends. Wow, they had a lot to say. A girl at another table informed Mrs. Hyer (as they were building little families with little people) that she didn't have a Dad anymore because her mom didn't want to live with him. Mrs. Hyer was very sweet and said, "well that's okay" then at Morgan's little table I asked the kids how many people they had their families. One little boy said, "We have 10, but that's because we have grandma's & grandpa's!" I said "wow, that's a lot of people." He then said, "Yeah, but my grandma is always smacking my grandpa." I said, "Oh, that's not good." He replied, "It's because he's always pooping his pants!" I tried not to laugh. Mrs. Hyer must have a whole book of funny things kids say. So after about 15 minutes, I tried to leave, and finally came to bribery. I told Morgan after school we could go and get icecream- that didn't work, I told her we could go and pick out some new underwear for her (I figured since she is 5 now she we should get her a bigger size than the 2T-3T, and she is actually excited to pick it out)-that didn't work either, so I finally said, "Morgan, I need to go home and check on Hallie" to which she agreed as long as "I promised to come back & pick her up" with one final big hug, I left and went back to pick her up 1 hour and 45 minutes later. (On Wednesdays they get out earlier) She was sitting by her neighborhood friends & as happy as could be. She had so much fun at kindergarten, and can't wait to go back tomorrow. Thank goodness! What a dramatic morning. :)