We just finished the craziest week of the summer in case you were wondering why F’s birthday post was late. I started it early but nothing was accomplished this week. I’ve been trying to do laundry for days, but just surviving is about where we ended up.
The end of summer means we’re at the start of a new school year. I think we were mostly successful, despite the fact that daycare decided to close for a few days while school was starting. The worst time of the year for them to close? Possibly.
The night before school started, we were able to walk through the school to see the classrooms and E’s desk. We took the whole family including Aunt Raina (who came to save us this week). We went over where E would go on the first day, what path they’d take, and what room their friends would be in. Afterwards we noticed that there was ice cream across the street and decided to take everyone for a treat. It was F’s birthday after all, and who doesn’t love ice cream?
Actually all summer we’ve been in search for the local ice cream truck. We’ve driven around town looking for it at each playground or school, we’ve chased it a few times, but we’ve never succeeded. I’d promised the kids months ago that we’d get ice cream from one if we found it. So of course it makes sense as we were walking back from the ice cream store, we rounded the corner and saw the ice cream truck - parked right next to our minivan. It wasn’t a great way to end the night (because of course it lead to some tears that we weren’t going to have ice cream after our ice cream) but we survived.
I took first day of school pictures the night before and on the actual day, due to rain in the schedule. The one from the day before certainly is prettier, but the one I took as we were waiting for the bus definitely shows the rawness of emotions we all had the morning of. We were all a bit nervous and a delayed bus didn’t help. However when I picked them up at the end of the day they jumped up and down and the first thing they said was: “I thought I was going to be scared all day but I wasn’t!”
The busses were definitely the biggest hiccup of the first week. Our bus came a good 15 minutes later than I thought it would the first morning, but the afternoon was even worse. I think most of the country is low on bus drivers right now, and so our schools share buses. The middle school and high school go first, then the primary and intermediate schools on this side of town, followed by primary and intermediate on the other side of town.
E only rides the bus in the afternoon a few days a week, and the first day of school wasn’t one of them. Even though I was home, I decided not to pick them up right away, so they could figure out the full afterschool protocols with everyone else. We hadn’t seen the bus go by yet, and when I drove towards the school it was obvious because I saw a lot of families waiting at bus stops. I thought I might pass it as I drove, but when I pulled up to the school I saw E’s bus still loading students. 55 minutes after school had ended! The other side of town got home almost 2 hours after their school let out so I’m hopeful that by the time E rides home they’ll figure it out.
Overall things went as good as we could hope though. We only had 2 days of first grade and 3 days of the new daycare year (which doesn’t change much, although F did move up a room) but everyone seems to be adjusting. Definitely more tired than usual, but actually less tears than I expected.
I was actually doing some math this week and realized that when F starts Kindergarten, she’ll only be 4 years old since school starts before the deadline/her birthday. I guess this used to be normal, since when I grew up the deadline to turn 5 was December 31 but it feels weird now. I have no doubt she’ll be ready - she’s already so clever and learns quickly from her siblings.
