Nicole and Corey Noonan were dropping off their 5-year-old son Conor to his first day of kindergarten at Meadows Elementary School on Thursday morning. Nicole had tears in her eyes saying goodbye.
“I have mixed emotions. I honestly don’t know. I’m crying, obviously, but I’m happy at the same time. He was super excited to come to kindergarten. He’s been really excited. He did have a little bit of an issue letting go right now, which made it even harder,” Nicole said.
She added that she spoke to another mother who was going through the same thing, calling it a weird feeling.
Nicole said she was glad she could come to see her son go to “big boy school,” as she called it, and anticipated her son learning a lot for his first year.
“He loves to learn, so I anticipate him learning a lot of new things and I’m looking forward to seeing where he takes this next year,” Nicole said.
Once the school day started, children and parents were funneling in through the gates to find their respective classes and children had smiles painted across their faces, excited for the new year.
One father, Kirk Mullins, was dropping off his 7-year-old daughter, Isabella, to her second grade class.
“She’s excited for the new teacher and seeing her friends again for the first time after the quick break,” Mullins said.
Mullins added that he was also feeling mixed emotions for his daughter starting the school year.
“I’m happy to see her going into second grade, but at the same time. I’m like, ‘My baby’s growing up too quickly.’ You know, I think everyone feels like that,” Mullins said.
When asked if dropping off his daughter brought back any memories of his first day of school, Mullins said that the first day did not, necessarily, but doing homework with her did.
“It does bring me back to, when I was in school, when I’m helping her with homework and stuff. And the first day jitters, I guess, yeah, that would be well put, yeah, kind of. Nostalgic,” Mullins said.
Another father, Tony Sarun, was dropping off his 8-year-old daughter Melanie and his 10-year-old son, Anthony, to their classes.
Melanie was starting her third-grade year and Anthony was starting his fifth-grade year.
Sarun said the mornings are hectic, but his children were excited to see their friends.
“It’s a little hectic in the morning. They’re not too excited (about starting school), but, you know, once they see their friends, they’ll get back into the swing of things,” Sarun said.
Sarun said his daughter was feeling nervous about her first day, but his son was fine.
“Well, you can know that as they’re growing up, we were excited for them to grow up also. We’re able to do more things with them, at the same time. You don’t really want them to grow up too fast also. It just, enjoy how they are, one day at a time,” Sarun said.
