Little Brick Houses for You and Me: First Day of School

Last Thursday was it...the first day of school! I was pretty excited for this and nervous of course. Being in school every day is a huge change. I arrived to find every block surrounding the school in traffic jam mode but I found a spot on the street, we hiked the 1.5 blocks to the designated door and got him settled.

He was happy to be there and their were parents in public service there in uniform to participate in their traditional first day flag raising and there was a police officer mom and dad in his class. The mom belonged to the girl sitting next to him so that was fun. They were handing out their traditional gold sticker badges.

After picking him up he said he ate his lunch but didn't drink his milk (sigh, I was non milk drinking kid also. His milk drinking at home is very routine so hopefully he breaks out of it and drink from the little cartons at school). Their is a big black pet fish in his room named after the school mascot and sadly he stayed hidden in his little underwater log all day. He said several times that he really liked music class and his music teacher which is in what he called an outside room. I wasn't sure what this meant and I thought maybe they just sat in a circle outside because of the nice weather but I think it refers to having class in a portable room behind the school. I remember being very fascinated with my music teacher in elementary school from the first day because she was such a good singer and I really hadn't heard anyone sing like that right in front of me before. I'll have to start playing piano for him more often. I never do because every time I sit own at it the kids climb all over me and bang on the keys so no one gets anything out of it.

They have their first phy ed day today and I'm sure he will love that. I mostly hated it when I was a kid. I'm a slow runner and I just had no interest in most of the tag based games we played in elementary school. I also hated the requirement of wearing tennis shoes because I thought they were ugly.

The bus riding plan so far...has been nothing but chaos. The first day I asked the teacher what the bus protocol was for after school (like making sure someone walked them out until they know where to go) and I didn't specify that I was picking him up that afternoon. So when I got there he was on the bus (I caught it before it left). The driver said she had waited at our corner that morning but had to drive away even though I clearly specified with the bus company that we would start on Monday. So this morning I got the robo call that it was 15 minutes behind schedule. Ben's pickup is 12 minutes before school starts so pretty easy math-he would be late for school. I went down to wait anyway with him and Milo (Tessa was sleeping) and 8:30 came and went with no bus and I started to think it wasn't coming so we ran back up to our house and I threw them in the car and grabbed Tessa out of her bed and pulled out of the garage just in time to see the bus driving away from the stop. Now the driver will probably really be annoyed with me and I'm nervous about what will happen after school. I'm also embarrassed because I already showed up at the school as the stereotypical
"hot mess mom" who is dragging kids in pajamas (and no shoes for Tessa) and frantically zooming up to the school like a maniac.

Now I don't know If I trust the bus company. It is a private company paid by the public schools so if you have a conflict you don't talk to the school. You call an operator at the bus company. I know it's the third day but I don't know how you can get that late if you have a no waiting policy (they will only wait 60 seconds). I rode the bus for years and I remember only being late for school once because the weather was bad the day before and the bus got stuck in a snow bank in someone's driveway. And it wasn't a 20 city block radius-it was a long winding country route of many miles of gravel roads and the weather was often bad in the winter and if a family didn't come out the driver would radio the school secretary who would call the house to double check and hurry them along. The driver would wait probably up to five minutes. And still we were never late.

Tessa starts preschool this week. She has been enjoying her downtime having things to herself. After the first morning drop-off she went right to her room and changed out of her dress she was wearing and came out wearing mismatched pajamas. She then plopped herself on the couch to watch a show of her choice with no fighting.