First off, thanks for everyone that acted as a sounding board and gave advice & opinion over the summer. Really, thanks.

So today was DS5.5's first day of school (advocated and received early admissions into 1st grade after a pretty long debate during the summer). I have to say that DW and I had a fair amount of angst about this because (a) there have been plenty of times where DS well... decided to act... his age... if that, (b) the SD's support was underwhelming, and (c) we just weren't sure if this was the right move even if DS was ready for it academically. Given all of the pros and cons we decided that for him this was probably the best move.

Well today he went to his first full day of school and he seemed to do a pretty good job with coping with everything. We know DS pretty well. He goes into this "data collection" mode when presented with something new where he isn't sure about what is going on. Very quiet but very observant. This is the same thing he did last week when he went to orientation. (The principal didn't give us the warmest reception and said something to the effect of "oookay, we'll see how this turns out.")

But today went really, really well. DW and I (of course) were much more anxious than the boy who pretty much booked to the bus when it arrived. Made it through the day and came home in pretty good spirits. Told us all sorts of things about the day... with a fair helping of "I forgot" or "I don't remember". Some things never change. Something did happen that I didn't think would happen so soon though. As told by DS:

[other boy] "How OLD are you?"
[DS] "5 1/2"
[other boy] "You're not old enough to be in first grade!"
[DS] "Weeeeellll... some people are old enough when they're 5, some people are old enough when they're 6, and some people are old enough when they are 7. It just depends."

Now granted that he was repeating what we've told him... but needless to say I was pretty darn proud.

JB