School's In Session

In reality, it's been in session for 2 months now and I'm just getting around to writing about it, bad mommy. But the long and the short of it is, kindergarten is going great, as is three year old school!

I will try to recap the first day, but to be honest, it was pretty much as you would expect. We all loaded up in the car together and headed out the door with showers taken, breakfast eaten, and lunches packed, all by 7:40 in the morning which was quite a feat until this day in our lives. Now as I write this, it's somewhat old hat, but, on that day, it felt monumental. We headed off to Bonita Springs Preparatory and Fitness Academy to deliver Payton to Mrs Fangmeier's classroom. On the first day, we were encouraged to walk our kindergartners into the classroom, get her settled and move on. We took a few minutes, took photos, and off we went. Payton was super excited, but as we left she did shed a few tears. I swore to myself I would be strong and not let her see me cry, so I put on my big girl panties and smiled, waved, promised to come back, and walked away, with a few tears hidden away in mommy land. Jason thinks I'm silly when I cry at these things, but he let me have my few tears in the car as we headed to Preschool at the Lamb to unload another! What I haven't mentioned to now in the story is that as the morning was progressing, I was coming down with a nasty stomach illness, that makes it all somewhat fuzzy, and each step of the day fuzzier. So, there aren't many pictures of Parker's drop off, and my memory is not 100%, what I do know is that Parker was returning to her classroom from the previous year and already knew most of the staff quiet well. She was still hesitant, but didn't make too much a stink. And I headed home to an empty house. Bliss, I'd been looking forward to having an empty house for years, and I finally had it! Too bad I was too sick that day to really enjoy it. I figured out a few things to do with myself until pick up time, and headed out to get Payton. She came bouncing out of the school so excited to tell me how much fun it was, and I was thrilled for her!
She told me that she really wanted to ride the bus the next day to get home. I told her that she might be able to later, but for the next day I'd be picking her up so that I could take her to dance class. Well, things didn't work out quite like I had planned. I knew that Tuesday afternoons were going to be crazy this year because I'd scheduled Parker to be in a dance class from 3-4 with me running over to the school to pick up Payton at 3:45 and rushing her back for her 4:15 dance class, and this was to be the first of these crazy afternoons. What I didn't plan for was the school sending her on the bus! I pulled up in a rush into the pick up line that had gone so smoothly the previous day, asked for my second day kindergartner only to be told that she had been put on the BUS! By this time I was worried about Parker coming out of her class at 4 scared because I wasn't there to collect her, so I rushed back to the dance school, on the way calling Jason to tell him to get to the bus stop. After collecting Parker, I decided to go back to the school, just to make sure Payton REALLY had been put on a bus. The thought of her waiting at the school thinking I'd forgotten her made my stomach hurt, so I just had to go back and confirm it hadn't been a mistake. Poor Mrs Fangmeier looked like she wanted to cry when I asked to confirm that and asked WHY she'd been put on the bus. See, it was also her first year of school at BSPFA, so she was trying to learn the ropes too. Apparently the school had Payton on the bus riding list, because when I signed her up for the school last February I'd checked a box to inquire about using the bus service. I tried to reassure her that I wasn't mad, but that for future reference she'd be picked up. That was until I got home, and the darned kid was SO proud of her bus riding that she insisted on riding it full time! That lasted about two weeks and the newness wore off. Now we're both happy to meet up in the pick up line each and every afternoon at 3:45 without fail. For now it's fun to have that bit of time in the car together, wonder how the next 14 years of it are going to feel...