First Day of School: 2010

Shall we call the beginning of my empty nest? BOTH of my nugs are now in school. Can you believe it? And no, it wasn't all a joyous occasion. Although from the looks on their faces in the pictures, you wouldn't know it all wasn't rainbows and ponies and whatever they group together with those things. (I have never seen rainbows and ponies together.)
Ronan started pre-school. 6 hours a day. For 6 hours a day, my little man is in a classroom, doing things. Playing. Napping. Eating. Snacking. Playing. And staring at the clock, waiting for the "small stick" to point at the 3.

I cried. He cried. It was the most awful drop-off ever. He walked into the classroom and clung to my leg. I held back the tears. His teacher could sense my anxiety. I mean, this was supposed to be a happy day. I was going to have 6 hours of no kids. But, I wanted nothing more than to have those very 6 hours with the little dude. What was I doing? So I stood in the room and hugged him, very tight. After finally letting go, I saw his eyes fill up with these huge tears and as his teacher held onto his hand, trying to coax him to play with a toy...I ran out of the room and into the hallway. I didn't hold back then. I was bawling. NOT a great scene in a preschool, with parents and kids walking around...

I hurried out into the lobby, where the director of the school saw my state of frenzy. She brought me into the office and there was Ronan, on the monitor. I could see my baby boy and he was fine. Still pouting a little, but totally fine. Playing, in fact. I mean, was that how it was going to go down? Wasn't he going to cry for me and ask to go home? He had coped and there I was, not coping. I was crying and wishing for just 5 more minutes.

But I left, knowing he was in good hands and rushed home to make sure Riley would be able to get on the bus...

Thinking that the bus was going to be there at 9 am, I thought I had missed her. So you can imagine the shock on my face when I saw the big group of students, parents and pets waiting at the bus stop. Running towards her, I could see the mortified look on her face. It basically said, "omg, mom, please stop running towards me...you are embarrassing me in front of all these people I don't know!" But I made it to her, catching my breath - I introduced myself to all the other moms/dads. We stood talking and staring at our watches...waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting.

At 9:40 am, still no bus. Uh, school starts at 9:30!

At 9:49. No bus.

At 9:49 and 2 seconds, was me on the phone with the bus company...who had no answers for me.

My poor child, my third-grader, who was brand new to all this...was going to be LATE on her very first day of school. (Mother of the Year Award to be presented here.)

At 10 a.m., we decided as a group to drive all the kids to school.

The bus never came that morning. I guess there was no bus scheduled to take any of the kids in our area to school...but after a few days of chaos and late buses, we're finally all good!


Happy to report that both kids had a great first day and agreed to go back.

Although I will say it's taken about 2 weeks to finally get Ronan into school without crying! Definitely something to say about military kids adjusting well. As worried as I was about Riley making friends and liking school, she hasn't had a problem with either! Guess when you are forced to cope with something, you just do!