The First Day of Kindergarten

I survived, Emma survived, we all survived.  It was such a weird day, but it was exciting too!  We started off our weekend by hanging out with Brittany and Kayla.  We wanted to have one last LONG day at the lake before starting school but Mother Nature decided to let it rain instead!  So the kids played inside all day saturday and once the rain let up, we headed to CJ's to get our favorite soft-serve ice cream, where ironically we had only been one other time this summer and it was last week! 

So now Sunday was upon us, the day that I had now been dreading.  Ughhh... I thought I was excited for her to start school, apparently I was not ready.  We went to church, then to Target, then headed home where we hung out while Hannah napped, then we spent a few hours at the pool.  It hit me at the pool that this was no normal day for us where we would head home, make dinner, watch some tv, lounge around, go to bed and do it all again in the morning.  Nope.  I would be waking Emma up bright and early to GO TO SCHOOL in the morning.  That was such a weird feeling, I couldn't even really think about what it would feel like to do it.  Once we headed home and got changed I started making dinner and decided to pack her lunch and that was enough to throw me over the edge.  I lost it over a packed lunch! This event we had been counting down to from what felt like forever ago had finally arrived and it was all becoming too much for me to handle!
(But she got a good lunch once I pulled it together)

She went to bed without a hitch because she woke at 645 Sunday morning, so she was pretty tired that night.  She barely wanted me to read her a story.  Thankfully she got up pretty easily, probably because of the excitement, we'll see how long that lasts!  After a quick shower (if only I could shower that quickly!), she got dressed, I made her pancakes (the frozen kind, I didn't wake earlier enough for homemade, give me some time!), but she only ate one, so thankfully I made her a giant lunch because I'm pretty sure she was ravenous by lunch! I dried her hair, brushed her teeth and we headed out to take pictures.  Her bus driver was about 15-20 minutes late and I'm so glad she didn't want to eat breakfast at school because she wouldn't have been able to today!  I was fine and dandy; I took some pictures with her, played tic-tac-toe with her with some chalk, went over a few more rules and manners and made sure she knew her bus number.  Then the bus turned the corner and those tears decided it was time to show up! I held it together long enough to get a picture of her walking to the bus and once she got on and to ask the bus driver if we needed to walk down to another stop with another group of kids, but once those doors closed and the bus took off and I turned around I was a goner!  Matt asked me if I was ok and assured me she was coming home and I responded, "I hope so!".  I think the hardest part for me was the letting go part.  I wasn't there to hold her hand anymore or help her along anymore.  I just had to let - go and that was sooooooooooooo hard for me!   I really thought I would be OK.  She goes to her dad's and is gone for days and I usually look forward to the break.  I do miss her and love when she comes back and we get back into a routine and plan things for us to do all together, but I guess it's different.  This was a big step, she is growing up.  Now she'll be in school until she graduates and I have to start letting go. 

But I did let go and it was hard but she had a GREAT time.  I thought about her ALL day.  I kept wondering what she was doing at different times of the day.  I wondered if she thought about me or missed me or Hannah.  I wondered if she behaved or if any of the manners or rules I taught her paid off or if she gave the teacher the same sass she gives me.  I wanted to drive to the school and just look.  I told her I would come eat lunch with her but she doesn't want me too.  I think I will anyway!  Hannah and I ran some errands today and came back in time to get her off the bus.  She jumped off the bus and gave me one of THE biggest hugs she has ever given me, it was SOOOOO nice, I loved it and made me feel so good.  I guess she missed me a little :)  I asked her about her day and the first thing she said was "We had science", I guess she was amazed!  Her favorite thing today was circle time, they read a story about a girl in a red dress.  And she played outside and said she showed everyone that she can do the monkey bars.  Throughout the evening she kept telling me these amazing and inredble facts like, "did you know they have a cafeteria?" or "did you know they even have a library?", you can fill in the same "did you know" with any part of the school, she was fascinated to say the least.  She was exhausted shortly after she got home.  After she ravenously ate more, she fell asleep on the couch!  It was a big day for my big girl!

She told me about some of the kids in her class.  She is very social and talks to just about anyone.  As soon as she got on the bus she sat on the first seat behind the bus driver and immediately began talking to the little girl next to her.  She said it was her "best friend".  (Don't worry Brittany, Kayla will always be her BFF!) She makes friends very easily and I don't really worry about that part of school, thank goodness!

So we do it all again tomorrow.  I wonder if I'll cry again tomorrow or the next day or if I got it all out today. I had a few people call to see how either I did or how she did and it really meant a lot and I was surprised by 2 of the phone calls.  It's was a big day and not just for her, but it was for me too!  Hannah did surprisingly well too.  I was too overcome with emotion to see what she did when Emma got on the bus (Matt was holding Hannah) and she was playing in the yard when I walked to the mailbox to get Emma, but throughout the day she was fine, so that is a good thing! But the first day is over, all the excitement and worries.  Time for reality and lunches, baths, stories and bedtime!

Cry Baby

So I had my first cry session of the "Emma is starting Kindergarten" year! On my way to Wal-mart to get groceries of all places too! I don't know what started it, maybe because she was wearing one of her new outfits to meet her teacher later on, but I was thinking about what bothers me the most... I'm going to put her on the school bus Monday morning and then she's off. I won't be there to help her find her room, I just have to trust that someone will do that for me; I won't be there to show her to go through the lunch line and order her food and then enter in her SIX digit pin number (YES, six digits even for Kindergarten!) if I don't pack her lunch. In my head I know they help all the new kids do these things, but it's so hard to just let go and let someone else take care of it for me (brings tears to my eyes now, sniffle sniffle). Emma had no interest in buying lunch from school, she wanted me to pack her a turkey sub (everyday she says) in her fancy new lunch box that matches her fancy new backpack; so at school today I checked the box on some paperwork I was filling out that said she would be eating breakfast at home. I figured if she didn't want to buy lunch she wouldn't want to buy breakfast, no naturally she says she wants too! But her teacher was saying that a lot of kids just come in off the bus, drop their backpacks into their cubbies and go eat breakfast and I was like, that's it, no one takes them? they just go? they know what to do? Things like that are what scare me the most. And I don't know if scare is the right word to use, it's just so different now. Maybe it's because I have my own social anxiety problems that I worry for her when I don't need to.
Her teacher is wonderful though. Ms. Mikulan is the same later that tested her when we registered her for school. I really liked her and hoped Emma would get her. The class size is small too. Emma's school day is pretty short and I'm so grateful we live so close to school. Emma is one of the last stops to pick up, so she'll be picked up at around 755 and be the first home, around 245 which to me isn't bad at all!
Hopefully I can get through the next few days without crying and I'll save it for when the bus pulls away and then I can sob like a little girl myself. And I thought I was ready for this??? Apprently not as ready as I thought!!!

Panic Mode

So I'm starting to panic, school starts on Monday! As much as I was looking forward to having a routine for the kids again, I'm starting to dread it too! We've always been so easy going. We'll just pick and go somewhere at the spur of the moment and now we can't or at least so it seems. It has to be this somewhat thought out plan. And I can't just ease myself into it, she has tball practice, not just once a week, not just twice a week, but three times a week until her games begin. So I have to figure that out with everything else! And I wanted to enroll her in dance again, so that once tball was over in October, she would have something to do this winter, but I think it may be too much just for ME to keep up with, let alone her! Then I have to figure out some sort of routine for her to go to her dads. If he had a normal work schedule it would make life so much easier, but he's only off certain weekends a month, usually back to back and I'm hesitant to let her go (ok be away from me), two weekends in a row during school season. I grew up doing the every other weekend thing, so that is what is normal to me.
Hopefully once school starts I'll see that it's not so bad and we can still do things spur of the moment when she gets home from school. I just have to make time for homework and bedtime routine.

The Adventure is beginning....

Emma starts Kindergarten in less than two weeks! To be honest, I'm a mixture of emotions. I'm sad that things will be SO different now. We won't be able to just wake up and go somewhere during the week, we'll have to plan it on a weekend and family outings will be harder to plan with Matt working weekends. I'm sad that the school adventure has begun. She'll be school until she's all grown up and heading out the door for a career (college will not be an option here!). But I'm also excited for her, she's so very social and I think she will thrive and will do so much better in school than being bored at home. She's excited too! She loves the whole idea of shopping for school clothes and especially shoes! Aunt Janie bought Emma most of her wardrobe for the rest of summer heading into the fall and we finished shoe shopping (where we came back with 4 pairs and will probably need one or two more!).
I'm a little worried about Hannah though. She was very upset the last time Emma went to her dads. Emma is her buddy, she follows her around and does EVERYTHING Emma does. I have a little curriculum I'm going to be working with Hannah on each day so she can learn her letters, colors, shapes, etc. and hopefully take her mind off of Emma not being there most of the day. But I'm not the only one who is going to be adjusting, Hannah will be too!
I plan on writing Emma a letter to give to her when she graduates I guess, I may even continue it and write a letter for each first day of school until graduation. I think it will be neat for her to read it and see how I felt and even see how it changes from year to year.
And so the adventure begins.... sigh, sniffle, smile....

Welcome to the Rivah

So it's ironic I start my blog on the first day of vacation huh? It's actually pretty relaxing! I'm sitting on a screened porch facing the Potomac River (which is only 25 yards away) and the wind is blowing. The kids just took off running, so the quiet makes it even more relaxing! :)
My Uncle Bill and his wife and kids rented a house called Ria Casa (check it out at riacasa.com) for the week and invited my Dad, my Gramma, me, Matt, our girls, and my sister and her son out to join him for week. Unfortunately my Gramma couldn't make it and my sister can't come until Sunday night for only a night or two, so the rest of us took over the house!
Surprisingly, the waves aren't much smaller than that of the outer banks, so it almost feels like we're at the beach! When we first got here all the kids got on their swim suits and headed to the giant blow up pool with even bigger slide my uncle brought with him. They eventually got bored and got dressed only to an hour later walk down to play in the sand where of course they all got sopping wet. Once Hannah and Matthew fell, it was all over! They had a blast letting the waves crash on them over and over and over again! We literally walk out off the back porch, walk a fewyards and sit on the sand - each house has basically their own private beach! I would definitely recommend this place to anyone looking for a getaway!!!
I can't wait to post the pictures! I have my sister's laptop (i'm supposed to be doing school work, not blogging, but oh well!), so I can't load my pictures on here, but I can't wait to share some of pictures of the kids playing in the water!