Blessed Bountifully: July 2011

29 July 2011

What a week....

So I was expecting the first week of school to be a bit of a madhouse, but nothing like it has turned out to be. The first day of school Andrew forgot to bring home his good water bottle from school and we have yet to see it again. The second day of school, he got to ride the bus for the first time and LOVED it! hen he got off the bus the second day, he had to swim upstream back on to the bus because he forgot his backpack. When we got home, we discovered his lunch box wasn't in his backpack. On the third day of school, I get a phone call from the nurse's office telling me that Andrew slipped in the rocks and split his head open and I needed to come and get him. It wasn't too bad and didn't need a bandaid or anything, but he got some pretty good rock burn on his head, face, arm and leg. Still no water bottle or lunch pail. On the fourth day of school, I went to meet his bus about 10 minutes early, only to find the bus had already dropped the kids off. I hurried down to the bus stop. No Andrew! Thinking he has just not gotten off the bus, I called the school who radioed the bus driver. She said he got off on the right stop. Awesome! I thought maybe he had gone the wrong way from the stop and down the wrong street. I got 2/3 of the way down the street north of us...still no Andrew. Asked a couple of girls if they had seen him. No luck. My friend who was with me happened to look behind us and see a woman and three kids. It was him. Thank goodness a mom from a different stop realized that the little boy following her son off the bus wasn't a regular at their stop and decided to help him out. I'm a bit frustrated with the bus driver who said he got off the right stop when he didn't. I realize the first week of school is crazy, but the drivers really should be more aware of where the kindergarteners, who have no idea what they are doing, have all their stuff and get off at the correct stop. On the lighter side, he did bring home his lunch pail so now we are just missing a water bottle and half his sandwich container. So far, so good today. I hope we don't have any more excitement! I don't think this mom to a new school-goer could handle much more!

UPDATE: So today went just fine. He even managed to find the water bottle he lost on the first day of school and brought it home.

Andrew loves his teacher though and has a blast playing with Jacob and Travis, two of his friends from preschool. He also has made friends with a boy from his class who catches the bus with him in the morning. Whew! What a week!

25 July 2011

First day of Kindergarten

I can't believe this day is here. My little boy is now a kindergartener. He's been so excited to start school for over a year now. All of his friends from his first year of preschool started school last year. He has asked probably a thousand times if he was going to kindergarten. And the day is finally here.

I have to admit, I've been looking forward to this day for a while, too. Andrew is an incredibly intelligent little boy who needs near constant entertainment and challenge or he gets in a lot of mischief. And that usually involves making his little brother scream bloody murder. I walked him to his classroom, we got to the door and he said, "Bye, mom." He wasn't even going to let me walk him in. I did anyway. No tears for either of us. Of course, we were running crazy. We had loaded up the car for everyone to go only to find the battery on the mini-van dead. So I had to move him to the car and take off like a shot. When we got to the school, we had to part in a dirt lot because the parking lot was overflowing with parents dropping their kids off for the first day. I was just glad I got him to class on time.

I worried a lot about him starting kindergarten because the kid's really smart. He's been reading for over a year now. He picks up things so quickly. He memorized his Articles of Faith in about 3 months. I know he knows pretty much everything he's learn in kindergarten. Do I test him into 1st grade? He's on the young end since his birthday is in March. I was afraid he'd be ready intellectually, but not emotionally. I went to meet the teacher hoping he'd have a good one. She's new to teaching kindergarten as his school so I knew nothing about her. I told her about Andrew and she said not to worry. She'd make sure he's challenged if that means pulling out 1st grade standards and sending home more challenging homework. I think we got the teacher we needed.

The house is a lot quieter today. Luke pretty well entertains himself. Matthew loves spending time in his jumper. If only I felt better (I've got a little cold) this day would be awesome! I'm so excited for my little guy.

Since I'm so far behind, here are some pics of the kiddos!