Off Ya Go! 1st Day of School Countdown...

I survived Back to School night with Mandy out of town and thought I was out of the woods. Then something fell off a plane in Dallas, stranding Mandy in a hotel on back-to-school-eve and prompting her uncharacteristic twitter attack on American Airlines.

It likewise shifted first day of school duties over to me.

The night before:

• Baths and showers early. Emphasis on using soap and not just the 9-year old twelve second rinse.
• Tell kids the four secrets of making friends  (smile, say hi, ask about them, remember names).
• Tell each kid two special traits they have.
• Give each kid a father's blessing.
• Go to bed 30 minutes early per dad-schedule, which is 30 minutes late per mom-schedule.
• Recheck supply list. I assume having left over boxes of crayons and glue is like having screws and bolts left over after an IKEA assembly.

Morning dilemmas:

• Are cinnamon rolls considered brain food? 
• Sack lunch or buy lunch for first day?
• Two girl hair dos: basket weave or bow braids? Nah, I do a mean pony tail.
• Where's their bus stop? I seem to remember Mandy mentioning that they moved it this year...
• Picture props: where's the chalkboard sign?
• No DSLR. 
• Do I have to cry when our kindergartner gets on the bus since Mandy won't be there?

What's worse, Mandy will miss half of her first day of fall freedom.

Lastly, I almost had to take over Mandy's posting for Tuesday. On Wednesdays she does the "Reader Feature" wrap up of her link party, where she picks her favorites and features them. I was going to do a "Take-a-Look Tuesday Are You Drunk" feature based on the links, but luckily Mandy had arranged for a guest to do the feature this week. Too bad, as there was a lot of potential content for my style of feature.

For future reference, how ticked would you be at Mandy if I raked your link-up over the coals publicly?