Back To School

Well, first day of school was yesterday. Gabi had a hard time all Sunday. She was clingy and whiny... when she wasn't around, I made mentioned that my guess was it had something to do with her "not getting as much of mom's attention as everyone else" because school was starting the next day - which was one of her biggest complaints with public schooling when she was in kindergarten. Sure enough, later on when it hadn't ended, she told Bob that exact same thing.

Beth was certainly nervous, but seemed to do okay once she was lined up to go inside. The Mini Kindergarten day helped with that, I'm sure. But she was certainly done at the end of the day and very happy to be picked up.

Their day wasn't over though, since it was back to school night - apparently that's a parent thing here, not a kid and parent thing. Not that I knew that going down. Thank goodness for grandma driving up the road (though nearly hitting Jeremy - not really, she was paying attention - since he thought he was so smart and so big and had wandered into the middle of the lane while looking behind him instead of in front) because she picked up the boys right there and headed up to her house with them.

Through whatever miscommunication (whether school or husband or whatever) and my own stress (due to needing to race through Back to School Night as the only parent of two (Bob was working in his own classroom) and needing to get a key from Bob, race back home to drive the girls to soccer practice so that the lady covering for Bob would have soccer balls... )well, my experience was not very good. I really felt it was a waste of my time and that it was poorly set up... later reading the handbook I learned parents were suppose to be handed basically a syllabus of sorts at this Back to School Night. I got nothing from Gabi's teacher and a whole packet from Beth's - though nothing close to a syllabus. Oh well... it's elementary school, right?

Something about being new in a community, not understanding the vast differentness of West Coast mentality (I don't think I'll ever figure that out), and apparently not having all the information needed to be ready and prepared.... you know, moving really sucks! No matter what, when, why or where you're moving, that initial "I'm new and apparently stupid because of it" feeling along with everyone making weird faces at you because they are "trying to be nice but think you've got a few loose screws" doesn't make it any easier!

On the other side... discipline as reared its ugly head once again in our house. Okay, so it never fully left, but now that we're not rushing to meet some deadline it's back in force. That was the hardest part of little boys. Peter spent a good hour crying and screaming as he sat on his bed because of behavior issues. Then was so tired he slept a good two hours and I had to wake him up so as not to be late to pick up Beth and Gabi.

We unpacked the paints, so the boys spent some time painting. Jeremy began working with starfall.com again - this time with me watching and coaching. When I get the boxes of books organized we'll start sitting and reading together for about 10 minutes a day to help him with his confedence.

Peter is potty training in "undy pants" again as well. That is his first major schooling focus. We'll probably jump in with some nutrition stuff too, since they will be here helping me with lunches anyway.

Anyway, right or wrong... school has started up. I hope to be volunteering once a week in Beth's class, sent in the form for it today, so we'll see what happens. I'm unaware of any volunteer opportunities (as of yet) for Gabi's class. I guess we'll just have to keep our eyes open for anything that might come up.

(I'll add pictures to this post when I get them downloaded... need to clean up iPhoto first)