Schools

Moms Celebrate First Day of School Milestones

Brookfield mothers celebrated firsts and lasts at their annual tradition of walking to Panera Bread on the first day of school.

After helping her children board the school bus for the first day of kindergarten, Chrisy Soell cheered. Amy Dall wept.

For Soell, it was her fourth and final child's rite of passage entering school, and he was ready to go, she said.

For Dall, it was her first-born daughter and a brand new experience for the family.

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Don't worry, it will get easier, other moms at the bus stop told Dall.

It did get a little easier as Dall joined about a dozen mothers on their annual tradition of meeting at on the first day of school to celebrate firsts, lasts and milestones. 

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Most of them gathered at the usual meeting spot at the North Avenue-Barker Road roundabout and walked the two-mile stretch to Panera Bread in the Ruby Isle shopping center. Others drove to Panera. One ran.

There, they toasted the day, talking and laughing with a few fighting back tears over iced teas, coffees and bakery. 

"This is cheaper than therapy," Cathy Markey said with a laugh. "We help each other through the hard times and celebrate the good times. We solve all the world's problems over an iced tea."

There's a lot of back-to-school attention focused on students and teachers. But it's a big day for parents, as well, whose emotions run the gamut as they send their kids to new schools or new grade levels. Some at Panera joked that sending your last child to school is "freedom year."

"I enjoy having them home over the summer," Corina Canitz said of her four children, all girls. "But they get tired of being by themselves. They need to be with their friends."

"By mid-August, I crave the routine," Markey said.

Canitz said her first-grader, Danielle, was a little nervous, saying the school took great care of kindergarteners, making sure they got to their classrooms. But first grade?

"You're on your own," her third-grade sister told her. Danielle's fifth-grade sister offered to walk her to class.

With her four children back in school, Canitz said it'll be easier to get in her morning training run. She was excited about that.

It was bittersweet for Diane Nemcek to send her final, sixth child off to kindergarten, the end of an era of having a child at home during school. Her oldest is in college.

"I should be jumping for joy," she said. "I'm sad." She smiled as Markey told her she was a good mother. 

She's also a busy mother — last year Nemcek had children in five different schools, counting preschool. 

For Markey, it's the first time in 13 years that she hasn't had at least one child at , with its early 6:40 a.m. bus stop. She won't miss those dark, freezing early winter mornings.

Markey now has two in college, two in high school and a fifth-grader at , where most of the Panera group mothers met. Many said they hoped it wasn't the last first-day-of-school at Hillside, which is being due to budget pressures and declining enrollment at the Elmbrook School District.

But closure wasn't the topic of discussion Thursday morning. It's all about the first day of school.

Dall, who was tearful at the bus stop, said she felt fine at Panera's. Her 5-year-old daughter Sydney "did great," she said. 

"She was nervous in the morning. She's going to miss me," Dall said. But seeing her friends from the neighborhood on the bus helped. "She smiled from the bus," her mother said. "That was a good feeling for me."

Kristy Clark said, "I think the kids are happy to go back."

Soell said it's time to start a new tradition.

"Let's meet at after school!"

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For more back-to-school photos, see a of students at Swanson and Hillside Elementary Schools. 


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