36/52 - Anders Starts Kindergarten

We don't know quite how it happened, but the time has flown and Anders has started kindergarten. It seems like just yesterday when our little Rocket was having his first (unofficial) school photo taken when he was just two.

Anders has been looking forward to this day since before his preschool graduation back in June... primarily because he couldn't wait to ride the school bus.

When the bus arrived, Anders was ready. There was no hesitation or anxiety; he just walked right on.

Corinne and I had to drop off a few things at the school, so we followed the bus to school that day. Anders could barely contain his excitement when he arrived at school. Only 6 kindergarteners took the bus that first morning. For Anders, I think that the bus was the part that he looked forward to the most.

Trout Lake School is a small, K-12 rural school. Each grade has a single class of between 12-22 students. Here in the Gorge, it has a good reputation; in fact, about 20% of the student population lives outside the school district and has chosen to come here. A friend of ours from Trout Lake recently completed his PhD at MIT and had great things to say about how the Trout Lake School prepared him. We couldn't ask for too much more.

Anders' kindergarten class is 16 kids: 6 boys and 10 girls. In that small class, there are TWO other Corinnes: one of the girls, and the mother of one of the boys. (One is spelled differently, and we're not sure about the other.) And we have yet to hear of another Mike or Michael. What are the chances? For the next 13 years, our Corinne will have to share her name with two other people. Having never had to share her name before, she's not very happy about it. I sympathize with her, believe me.

Anders had a great time on his first day. That evening, we stopped by the school again for a quick photo.

Anders drew this picture to capture his new school experience.

Anders is on the driveway (brown/grey), with the irrigation ditch (blue) flowing underneath.

For Corinne and I, we have mixed feelings about this transition. It doesn't seem possible that Anders is old enough to be in school already. It wasn't that long ago that he was just learning to walk and talk.

On the other hand, this is the beginning of the anticipated 'hermit' stage of our existence. The school bus to the full-day kindergarten stops at the end of our driveway, so we no longer have the daily preschool commute to Hood River of the past two years. We work out of our home now, so we have no work commute at all. Basically, we don't have to leave the house until we run out of food. Our biggest problem so far seems to be that our motivation for working wanes quite a bit when Anders comes home at 3:30 each afternoon.

As a final note, we have a request to the other parents out there: how do you get your children to tell you about what happened in school that day? Anders is already giving the "nothing" and "I don't remember" answers when asked about school. He's growing up!

Congrats, Anders! Have a great time. You'll do great.

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders