Kindergarten

It's hard to believe, but my baby boy started kindergarten this week.  It seems like only yesterday I was standing in the shoppette parking lot with butterflies in my stomach as we prepared to head to the hospital to be induced.  I knew my life would change drastically, but I had no idea how much.

 He did great.  I have some personal issues with lack of communication between the school and new kindergarten parents, but we are slowly figuring it out.  Two days before the first day, there was an open house we attended, so he had already met his teacher and taken all of his supplies in to his desk and cubby.

The morning of August 15, he ran into my room a few minutes after my alarm went off and told me that we were late.  I assured him we weren't, and he got himself ready.  We went downstairs and were joined quickly afterward by Kelsey.  We all ate breakfast.  Justin got home before we went outside for some photos on our front porch - which will definitely be a tradition in our family.

For the first day, Landon asked to ride the bus.  I went back and forth on it and was undecided even that morning, but ultimately, we walked him out to the corner and waited with all of the other kids and some parents, until the bus came to take them off to school.

Once the bus got there, everything happened so fast... I took a photo, and he was gone before I could blink.

I didn't cry much.  I teared up off and on through the day, and worried a lot about how he got to his classroom once he got to school, but I never broke down crying.  I cried more when I realized that I wasn't crying, actually.  :)

 It was strange not having him here, but Kelsey and I took advantage of the time we had and went grocery shopping.  She's a very funny little girl, but is even funnier without Landon there.  He tends to answer for her and talk over her, and it was cool to have some one-on-one time with her.  I look forward to spending this time with her before Baby H comes, and I see that there is going to be a shift in our household - Kelsey will be the oldest child around during the days.  I'm excited to see how that will play out for us.

When it was time to pick Landon up, we waited for awhile - the bus was around 20 minutes late.  I had this big idea in my head about him getting off the bus and running over to me, and I'd give him a big hug and ask him how his day was.  However, the bus driver called me over and told me that he had forgotten his lunch box on the bus that morning and they had to get it back to him... I understand that's a pain, but he is only 5 and it was the first day.  She also said that he had been asked three times to keep his backpack on while sitting down on the bus.  I have to admit, that threw me... it seems like a safety hazard to keep your backpack on and not be able to sit all the way back in the seat.  At any rate, my vision of picking him up after his first day didn't actually happen, but we talked about his first day while we walked back into the house.

It's hard to really piece together his whole day, but I learned that he really likes his teacher, and he went to the cafeteria when he got off the bus in the morning until his teacher picked the class up to go to their classroom.  He got to go to the library and he learned lots of cool rules.  One kid keeps getting in everyone's face, but maybe he will stop after they get to know each other.  :)  It's really different as a parent, not being in the loop about your kid's whole day.  Even when he went to the CDC while I worked, I picked him up and would talk to his teacher about how his day went.  Getting everything from a 5 year old directly leaves a lot of gaps, and it made me realize that this is the start of not knowing everything he does all day.  This is the start of his own, separate life - away from Justin and I.  It makes me sad, but it also feels right in a way.