Moira's first day of Kindergarten!

Before we left London for home, we stayed in a small hotel and had a wonderful, quick visit with Matthew Elliott and his daughter Clementine. Matthew and I were in a history class together at the University of Kent at Canterbury, and he was also good friends with Alan. He read at our wedding, we've been to see Prince in Indy together (with he and his wife--amazing!), and he now has three children and a wife who writes and illustrates fantastic books. Mr. Super Poopy Pants was getting a lot of press while we were in the U.K., and Matthew was kind enough to drive a long way to visit with us and drop us off a copy. It was wonderful to see him and Clemmie.

I wish I could say our flight home was uneventful, but that would be untrue. Hannah threw an amazing, monstrous fit in the immigration and customs hall that almost, almost caused us to miss our flight. To be fair, she'd flown all day, was exhausted, and was simply expressing what all of the rest of us were feeling inside, but it was still quite a long haul back to Indianapolis.

The reason I share such detail of our travel day (usually a day most want to forget) is because we only had four days to get home and get ready to send Moira off to school! To say it was chaotic is an understatement.

Somehow, though, we made it to the morning of Moira's big day. She was so excited. And I was dreading it. The reason I was nervous is because her school had asked for families to put their children on the bus, let them go off to school. They didn't seem to understand that my baby was only 5 years old, and I had never let her go anywhere without one of us nearby! She, however, told me that she just "couldn't wait to get on the bus and go on her own adventure all by herself." And she did just that as you will see in the photos below.












I am convinced that this moment will be forever seared on to my brain. What she was wearing. What she was saying. How thrilled and excited she was. Honestly, it still brings tears to my eyes today to think about that moment where my eldest marched off to kindergarten without looking back. Of course, since then, there have been moments where she has been reluctant to get on the bus, many moments of exhaustion at the end of a long day, and a lot of worrying on my part about whether I've made the right choice for my kiddo's education. However, as long as we can continue to help her channel that excitement and independence into everything she does, she will thrive.


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