Back to School 2012 {Sullivan’s Island, SC Children’s Photographer}

Summer has drawn to a close, and it’s time to send the littles back to school.  My oldest daughter is a social butterfly, and was thus very (thankfully!) excited to head back to see her friends for hours a day.  My youngest has been yearning to follow in her big sister’s footsteps and head to “big girl school” this year.  It’s hard to believe I’m sending my baby to kindergarten!  I look at her and remember vividly the day she was born . . . just like it was yesterday.  And despite the fact that I keep telling myself I’ll finally get the chance to take a crack at that to-do list that’s been accumulating for eight years, I still feel a little twinge of wistfulness that she will, from now on, be out of our house more than she will be in it.  I sure will miss my buddies during the day.

The worst part of school, by far, is the early hour we now have to get up.  We have a few night owls in our household who think that getting up to an alarm clock in the dark is a real bummer.  Last year when Emma went off to first grade, I did my best to memorialize the moment the morning she left for school.  Well, that cranky beast wasn’t having it!  She was exhausted, puffy-eyed and scowling.  Sure, it was “real” but that’s not how I want her to remember the first day of school!

This year, I wasn’t even going to pretend that I got up early enough to press my girls’ clothes, coif their hair just so AND coerce smiles from them all before breakfast.  We did a little dress rehearsal the afternoon before and had a lot of fun, actually.  I wasn’t stressed out trying to get lunches packed while taking the perfect photo.  I wanted to actually be in the moment the morning my baby went off to “big girl school” instead of behind the glass.