By the looks of Kristen Bell's recent Instagram post [1], she and her husband, Dax Shepard, have already geared up for Lincoln's first day of kindergarten [2]. The actress and mama of two shared a photo of her and Dax walking their 5-year-old daughter to school, followed by an adorable picture of her husband hugging Lincoln — and we cannot get enough.
The 38-year-old star of The Good Place captioned the photo, "Nerd alert!!! The team Shepard loves school!!" . . . and we'd be lying if we said the trio didn't make being nerdy cool pretty much instantly. While your kiddos' first full day is a milestone [3] for both students and parents, sending them into the classroom alone definitely makes us a little emotional. And judging by the comments section, other moms everywhere were catching all of those first-day-back feels, too.
"So sweet! Hope Lincoln has a great first year of school! I was a mess on my daughter's first day. And I'm a teacher but I try to avoid the kindergarten classrooms on the first day because I cry right along with the parents," wrote one mom. "Such a sap! It's a wonderful and exciting rite of passage."
Another woman chimed in, joking that while the photos are beyond sweet, she has a bottle of Champagne on ice for when her kiddos head back [5]: "So precious. Mine go back in four days . . . celebratory champagne already chilling and mommy happy dance choreography already locked in."
But like any mom with school-aged kids, Kristen told POPSUGAR that getting your children out of the door on time boils down to a well-scripted morning routine [6] — despite how challenging establishing one can be.
"Usually I try to get them dressed because they're in the bedroom, so we might as well knock a couple things off our list that happen in the bedroom. Then it's breakfast," she said. "Then they have about a half-hour of playtime while I feed the dog, brush my teeth, [and] put some semblance of sunscreen and pants on to attend preschool."
The busy mom also added that wrangling her daughters and getting them into the car safely is no easy feat:
"Getting them in the car is really the hardest part because once those kids have woken up and rediscovered their thirst for life, like they do every morning, they're just running in circles, and I'm like, 'Stop, stop, stop. Put your seatbelt on. Put your seatbelt on. Put your shoes back on. Put them back on. Take her shoes off and put yours back on. No, put your lunch away — we're not at school yet.'"
Thankfully, Kristen explained she has a way to get her daughters to spill the beans about their day at school [7]: by explaining to them why she's even asking in the first place.
"Do you know why we ask you about your day? I ask you about your day and I ask Daddy about his day because we've been separated for a few hours and I wonder how you're feeling . . . if you experienced something today you want to talk about," Kristen told POPSUGAR. "Also because I'm interested and it gives us a chance to reconnect to each other. That's why people ask one another about their day. It also makes the other person that's being asked feel very good and valued. It's a nice way to show you love someone."
