Malia's First Day of Kindergarten

Malia had her first day of Kindergarten today...actually it was only a half day.  She was SUPER excited and not at all afraid or nervous!  I was very proud of her! 

I am sure Malia will do very well in school.  I do hope though that she will not feel pressured as this leads to her shutting down.  The teacher in me wanted to teach her how to write the entire alphabet, numbers, etc, but it only led to some major meltdowns.  I have come to realize that I need to back off and let Malia learn at her own pace, even if it makes for some rather informal learning.  She is smart and will continue to catch on quickly...at least I hope she will....

For months now Malia has been waiting to wear her "school" dress.  I bought a cute dress, on sale, last winter and told Malia we would save it for school.  Well, somehow she got it into her mind that she should wear that dress the first day of school.  However, the weather is MUCH too warm...a sweltering 30 degrees... to wear a long sleeved dress.  Malia was easily convinced to wear a sundress instead...that is when I realized most of her clothes are deemed "inappropriate" according to the school dress code.  For example her shorts were too short, her sundresses have spaghetti straps and so on.  Having never dressed a little girl for school before, I was terrified of sending Malia to school in clothing deemed inappropriate.  A part of me thought it wouldn't be a big deal...but I couldn't remember....it has been too long since I've taught...and I never paid attention to the dress of elementary school students.  So to be on the safe side we picked capris and a t-shirt.  Of coarse, on arriving at school I realized I should have gone with my gut feeling and dressed Malia in her cute sundress...oh well!  Next time!  And yes, the dress code is in place because of a few teenagers dressing inappropriately a number of years back, and is only enforced if  a students dress is extremely revealing or provocative.  Whewwww!