Ethan's First Week of Kindergarten

Last Tuesday, September 4th, was Ethan's first day of kindergarten!!  I had been feeling very emotional about my little big man heading off on his own, on the bus, for all 5 days of the week!  I have been so fortunate to have been working part time since his arrival in our family and the idea that he was going to be gone from me for so many days was heartbreaking.  Our schedule has always been up to us and I've been sad (and kind of pissed off) about that changing to be quite honest.  However, he has been so ready and so excited that it's been impossible to be sad (or pissed off) for long!  He is even excited to be on the same schedule as daddy.  They now have the same number of stay home days.  

It was also a big day for Jacob as it was his first in Toddler 2.  It was hard to have him move on from the teachers we'd all gotten to love in Toddler 1, but he was really ready to move on up with the bigger kids.

 

Luckily we had a busy weekend and didn't have too much time to dwell on the super big day approaching. Tuesday morning we were all up dressed and ready to go by 8:10, as we'd been instructed, to head out and wait for the bus.

I love these next 2 pictures...guess which one is our early riser?

Walking out to the bus stop...

...standing at the bus stop...

...goofing around with daddy...

...taking cover from the rain...

...watching a load of dirt being delivered across the street...

...waving to the cars that were passing by...

...and then the bus was here!!!!! (somebody was a little bit excited.  I think my heart lept into my throat)

With a wave and a smile...he was gone!

We're the last stop on the road so the bus turns around just past our house.  We are not the last stop though.  Ethan seems to be somewhere in the middle which is good I think.  We have been standing and waiting for the bus to go past us again but all we can see is the very top of his head.  He's too little to see out the window!!

Once I stopped crying (sobbing may be a more acurate description), I drove to the school to see him arrive!  You can kind of see his head in the 4th window.  I felt like this was a slightly psycho move, but I decided that I would rather do it and feel psycho than not do it and regret not having been there.  I was not the only psycho parent there.  Not by a long shot...

Lining up with the other kids to enter the school!  They all go to the cafeteria to line up by class and wait for their teacher to come get them.  Each class has a different symbol.  Ethan's is a sunshine!  He was nervous in this particular line because he was between an apple and a cloud and thought he was in the wrong line for a minute. 

I did manage to get to work and have not cried since.  He has just waltzed into kindergarten like he's been going all along.  He really seems to love it even if he doesn't freely offer up any information.  I'm trying not to pry too much lest he shut down on me completely but a little more information would be nice!  His first 3 days were my work days so he went to CARES after school but on Friday he got to take the bus home!  He was so excited about that.  The bus might be the best part of going to school.  I wasn't sure when the bus would be by to drop him off so Jacob (who was a real trooper all morning as I dragged him around to run errand after errand, but then decided not to nap) and I went out at 2:15 to wait.  Ethan didn't get home until almost 3:00! 

Luckily there was lots of action at the house across the street.  Can you see the roller?  They were preparing to put down the driveway which is very similar to the story in a truck book that we read almost every night.

One of the many reasons we are so happy to have a gate at the end of the driveway.  Jacob just puts his head down and goes!

Safety first!

And then he was home!!

I can't imagine that there will be a day when he doesn't run at me with a big smile on his face to get a big hug at the end of his day.

Reunited at last.