Today marks one week since Will started school. Overall, I don't think it could have gone any better. He absolutely loves it. I'm pretty sure he has already developed a crush on his teacher, and seems to be getting along fine with his classmates. For the first few days, he consistently said that P.E. and lunch were his favorite parts of the day. :) He seems to really, really enjoy going to the lunchroom, getting his own tray, and having chocolate milk! I have been impressed with the variety of food that he is getting, and so far, no complaints about any of it. He has also really enjoyed getting to go to either art, music, computer, or library everyday. The button reward system his teacher has is so perfect for him, and he has already accumulated 16 buttons (well, 11 because the teacher spotted them 5) :) For every 10 they have at the end of the week, they get to pick out a prize. I only know of 2 that he has had to give back. They were on the same day and for the same thing...talking in the hall. That is not what I would have expected, and honestly, I think Stephen and I were both a little relieved that he was talking and that he had someone to talk to ;). Will has the potential to really clam up. So, so far so good as far as school goes.
The only real issue we've run into, which we expected, is the absolute exhaustion that accompanies him home everyday! It seems to follow the same pattern. He bounds off the bus with a smile on his face, tells me what's in his take home folder, and comes in for a snack. Then, little by little, he falls apart over the most ridiculous things. Tears and temper tantrums run rampant. After about an hour to an hour and a half of this fun, he gets his second wind and begins acting like a sprayed roach. Sarah is more than happy to participate in both of these. When he's grumpy, she's right there to irritate him and when that second wind kicks in, she's right there to egg him on! Needless to say 3:30-6:30 ARE NOT my favorite hours of the day right now! As a result, bedtime has moved a little closer to 6:30 every day. We've also bought a little more time to sleep in in the morning, since I began to take him to school. He rode the bus to school the first 2 days. Then, on the afternoon of day 2, he began incessantly asking me if I could take him to school. By the time bedtime rolled around he was crying and begging. In the morning, it turned into a full blown panic attack when it was time to go out for the bus. He absolutely came unglued and neither Stephen nor I could get him to budge off the porch. It was bad. Stephen even threw out our fool proof bluff, sending the Mario Bros. Wii game back to Aunt Ginny. He had it boxed up and everything. For those of you who do not know, Will is OBSESSED with the game and will do (or not do) anything to keep it. Not this time, this time he was seriously bothered. There was an incident with some older kids on the first 2 days with lots of yelling and the bus driver having to yell at them. We think that might have played a part. He has also mentioned that it is too noisy, and he falls off the seat every time the bus stops. (which makes me laugh) Who knows? When he started dreading it to the point of not going to sleep at night and saying he didn't like school as a result of this anxiety, we decided to give him a while to adjust before we try it again. He doesn't have any problem riding the bus home, which is really the time that I need him to ride the bus. The positive that has come from the situation is that we have an extra 20 minutes to sleep/get ready in the morning. It seems to make the whole morning a whole lot less stressful for all of us. Every morning, I am so thankful for the proximity of our house to our little neighborhood school!
How has Sarah adjusted to Will being in school? Sarah's doing great! We had a rough last couple of weeks of Summer with Sarah. She was acting out in a major way and really making life difficult for me. Sarah loves to have her big brother around to play with, but I definitely think she was feeling the competition in a big way with all of the getting ready for school talk. She seems to have settled back into her sweet self now that we have some one on one time. Don't get me wrong, she still has her moments, but she really can be so sweet, helpful, and downright funny! She keeps me laughing. I have 2 more weeks with her before she will start school 3 days a week for 4 hours. Speaking of Sarah starting school, she's a little excited about it. She will tell any perfect stranger who looks her way that she is going to be in Mrs. Corso's class and she is going to have a red bag with her name on it, and she'll start listing all of her "fwiends" that are in her class including the entire story of one of the little boys from last year who moved. Too cute! I'm glad she is so excited about it. I know it will be good for her.
We have 7 more weeks before Baby Luke's anticipated arrival date of October 8th. So, we've been working on getting the nursery put back together, right? Not quite. We actually decided on a whim to rip out the entire bathroom right outside the nursery, yellow floor and shower tile and all. You cannot imagine the mess that was created. All of a sudden, we have 1,000's of decorating decisions to make, 5,000 tools in the nursery, 10's of thousands of trips to Lowe's, Home Depot, Home Goods, Hobby Lobby, etc. for the kids and me (mostly poor Sarah and me), and lots and lots of hours of manual labor for Stephen. Every time I pass that room, I have to laugh (if I don't, I'll cry) to myself thinking this must be the third baby. Stephen has done a great job on the bathroom and it should be finished really soon. After that, we'll have our (long overdue) new carpet put in, and then put the nursery back together. Here's to hoping Luke waits for October. :)
I think this pretty much sums up what's going on around here right now. Life is crazy, but life is GOOD!
