Everett's First Day of Kindergarten

OK, you knew it was coming. 

Just after Labor Day (not that we get Labor Day over here), which was about two weeks after we got back from repat, Everett had his first day of SCHOOL.  REAL school.  We have a kindergartner in the house.  Holy cow. 

There was an open house before the first day, so that the kids and parents could see the classroom and drop of their required supplies.  Here we are on the way to the open house.  Everett wore his old preschool backpack for the last time. 

 

 Ready to go!

 Bye bye, old preschool backpack.  (SNIFF.)

 There are 11 (eleven) (!!!) kindergartens at his school.  This is because the Saudi kids are allowed to go to our kindergarten. There are lots of Saudis here, so they overwhelm everyone else.  And even if they are not Saudi, there are lots of Arabs.  Thankfully, there are three other western kids in Everett's class of 18.  One is Canadian and two are American.  That's doing pretty well. 

 His teacher is in the pink dress.  

 The class pet is a tank of fish!

 Everett sits at a table with four other kids.  Here is his spot.  

On the first real day of school, it dawned hot (nearly 110 at 7:45 am) and extraordinarily humid.  This was the fifth picture I took of him, as for the first four, the camera lens fogged up so much that you couldn't see him at all.  It took that long for the camera to equilibrate. 

For the first two weeks, all kindergartners have to wear a lanyard with their name, address, phone number, and method of transportation.  The options are BUS or WALK.  The Company will bus kids that who live too far away to walk in very luxurious brand new and very fancy Mercedes buses.  Kids like ours that live closer are required to walk.  But if you're in kindergarten, you may not walk by yourself (kindergartners are also not permitted to scoot or ride bikes), which means your mom has to walk you back and forth.  And they come home for lunch, so you're walking four times a day to school.  We live not quite a half a mile from the school.  And it's not like I can leave the younger kids behind.  So suddenly, our entire family is walking two miles every day! 

 

 Ready to go! 

The school has a tall concrete wall around it with a huge ugly metal gate that slides back and forth.  These pictures were taken inside the wall.  The kindergarten door is behind them, and that's the kindergarten playground under the sun shade. 

So proud!

 First day! 

 Walking him over to the playground.  Note new monogrammed backpack!

 Standing in the line for his class.    

After playtime, they line up when the bell rings and head on into the school.

 In he goes!!  A big kindergartener!  SNIFF!!

 I have never in my entire life EVER seen anyone sweat as much as Mike sweat on that day.  It's really hard to tell in the picture, but he was SOAKED like he had just been hit with a fire hose.  It was so amazing that I had to take a picture. 

At 10:45, we were back again for pickup.  Here is his class coming out of the school for pickup.  When your child sees you, he has to tell his teacher that he sees you and then he can run across the grass field to you.  This is my favorite part about kindergarten!  Everett sees me, beams, and runs full throttle into my arms, so excited.

Back home for lunch.  A great first day!