Ready For The Big Day

School Supplies? Check.

New Sparkly Backpack? Check.

New Princess Alarm Clock To Wake Up On Time? Check.

First Day Of School Outfit? Check.

Black and Blue Shiner To Let The Other Kids Know You're Tough? Check.

Oh, wait. Was that not supposed to be on the checklist? My bad. :)

So Dixie is just about all ready for her first day of school, and wouldn't ya know she gives herself a black eye the week before. Sheesh. I'm hoping it's gone come Monday, but there will still probably be a hint of it. I can already see the school counselors taking note of it and keeping a wary eye on our child for any other signs of abuse. :) jk. I'm still not entirely sure how she did this other than she was trying to throw something away and somehow got off balance (she said something about being on her tippy toes, but I'm not sure why she would be on tippy toes to throw anything away), and knocked her face against the corner of the wall. Ouch. She had quite the goose egg, but that went away within a day. The shiner? That's taking its sweet time in disappearing. Oh well.

We got to meet Dixie's teacher (Ms. Sims) on Thursday and see her classroom. It all looks so fun. She even met the bus driver (Mr. Brian) who will be picking her up and dropping her off each day. And speaking of... Dixie's school starts at 7:40 AM (pretty early for my liking), so I was thinking the morning bus would probably be coming by at around 7:20 or so. So we've been practicing getting up early this week and making sure we can be ready by 7:20. But on Thursday I found out otherwise. The morning bus comes by our house at 6:50 AM!!! Holy WHAT?? So now we've got to get up by 6AM to get our morning routine done and be ready in time. Ugh. I'm gonna have to start getting on some sort of energy drug to keep up with this schedule. Do they make anything like that that's legal in the Mormon world? :) jk. I'll be fine(ish). I'm pretty used to functioning on little sleep these days anyway. :)

But Dixie is so excited to start school. I think she's even more excited that she gets to ride the bus (why on earth??). She's been begging me to be able to ride the bus for about the last two years. She's not even letting me drive her to school on the first day (*tears!*), but I guess it's just as well since everyone and their dog is sure to be taking their kids to school on the first day, and I would probably just end up wanting to shoot myself with having Summer and Austin with me and trying to make our way through the crazy masses. So we will start our regular routine of riding the bus right from the start.
I'm really starting to struggle with the idea that my little girl will not be with me for a majority of the day anymore. I'm glad we were able to meet her teacher and that she seems to be really nice, but I realized that with a bunch of other kids in the class, there is no way she will ever get to know my little sweetheart the way I know her, and love her the way I love her, and give her the kind of attention she loves to have. Dixie will do well regardless, I know, but I'm sad that the majority of her time now will be with people who do not love her and appreciate her the most. I want to just hold her and hug her and never let her go! I don't want to send her off into the big world where there are undoubtedly kids who are going to be mean to her--people who will hurt her tender feelings. I want to make sure if she has a potty accident I'm there to be able to help take care of it so she won't ever have to be embarrassed. I want to be by her side so in case someone tries to make fun of her I can just pop their little mouths. I want to be there in case she falls at recess and scrapes her knee, when I know she will be crying and wanting comfort. I want to just be a shield for her against all the bad things that can happen.
I understand that these are all a part of life and she is now going to be on her way to learning all about it, but oh heavens. I'm not ready for this.

I'm gonna miss you, my sweet girl!