First morning.

Here are my four beautiful children ready to leave for their first day of school! (I am mainly doing this post for the benefit of their father, who is still out of town and was sad about not being here to see them off on their first day.)
You may not be able to tell from this photo (then again, maybe you can) that Sam was crying right before I took it. He woke up crying and was, again, like last year, SUPER clingy as we went to the school. He was literally forcing his little body up against me as he held tightly to my hand. I'm not sure why he has such insecurity about going to school. We live in a small town, and he knows all the kids and teachers well, and they're all wonderful, I don't get why he gets so scared. I don't know which way I prefer, like Sam who needs me and depends on me, almost to a fault, or like Noah, who is much more independent and who always wants to fly solo. As you can see from this photo, he just wanted to get to school and get the photo-op over with! As for Sophie, she complained of feeling "a funny lump in her throat" all morning, but once I got her into her classroom where Mr. Lish greeted her with a big hug, she was fine. Just over 2 hours of school left for today, and still no phone calls home from anyone...I'm keeping my fingers crossed!