Let the schedules begin!

Well, it is official. I am now a “school mom.” As excited as I have been about Matthew starting kindergarten, I have been a little weary of being tied down to a schedule. I have enjoyed my freedom and flexibility of a stay at home mom and am a little sad to give it up. (But I guess not sad enough to home school.) I hear half day kindergarten is the biggest hassle as far as schedules are concerned—but one definite plus to Washington is the free school buses. I never rode a bus to school, in California you had to pay extra, so my mom took us (or carpooled). In a way I have more flexibility-- I don’t have to load up all the kids two times a day to drop off Matthew and pick him up—and if ever I am out and want to pick him up I can just call the school. I don’t know, I guess I am warming up to the idea as Brandon is upstairs asleep and Cameron is at the kitchen table drawing pictures of dinosaurs.

When I met with Matthew’s teacher last week and mentioned he would be riding the bus to school she suggested that he start riding the bus on the first day to get used to the schedule. She said maybe I would like to drive behind the bus and then I could wave to him when he got off the bus. That seemed a bit silly to me, so I decided to do something else instead. On Friday morning I loaded up the kids in the car and we all followed the bus on the route (all but kindergarten started last week). After following the bus all the way to school and pointing out to Matthew where he would get off, etc. he seemed ready and excited to ride the bus to school on the first day.

This morning I pretty much had to force Matthew out of bed at 7:20am. I was hoping the excitement of the first day of school would make him not be such a sleepy head—no luck. I carried him down to the table and got him Rice Krispies which he took about 20 min. to eat. I think the excitement started to come because he was able to get dressed and brush his teeth by himself without getting distracted too many times. I got the other boys dressed and we headed over to the bus stop. Matthew pushed Brandon in the stroller and Cameron ran ahead crazy. Hopefully we didn’t wake up too many neighbors because I had to raise my voice a bit since Cameron was really out of control running all over the road—oh why are there no sidewalks?? When the bus came (at 8:20), Matthew climbed right on. And since he is the only kid at his stop the bus driver is going to stop in front of our court starting tomorrow—that will be nice!

Well, it is hard to believe Matthew is old enough to be in kindergarten… and that from now until my youngest graduates from high school I’ll be tied to the school schedule. Yikes! Let the schedules begin!