first day of Kindergarten.....the afternoon after

To begin, I have four words for you....THE BUS WAS LATE!

It was the longest 8 minutes of my life.

The little kids and I sat at the bus stop for about 10 minutes, and when his arrival time came and went (3:27), my head was immediately filled with all the scenarios of what could possibly go wrong and why the heck he wasn't here yet.  I had to call Jon to talk me down, I was giving myself an anxiety attack.  I don't think the convenience of the bus is worth all this.  (Plus he was on the bus for almost an hour and his school is only 1.5 miles away.  I think I'm going to rethink this bus thing.)

But when we were finally home safe and sound, I was able to ask Seth about his day.  Here are the responses I got to my many questions: 

"Mom, I need to wear tennis shoes because we do this thing called PE.  It's inside- in the same place we eat lunch.  There's a bunch of different things you can do, it's kind of like the Olympics."  (Like I said, we watched a lot a lot of Olympics these past two weeks.)

"I didn't really like lunch.  It was kind of like a taco with red sauce."  (It was a pizza quesadilla.)  "So, I just ate the applesauce." (NOT the salad.)  "And you know what?  Dad was right- they did have chocolate milk!"  (Jon had told him last night during dinner that he could drink chocolate milk at school every day if he wanted to.  I did not agree.)  So his first school lunch was applesauce and chocolate milk.

"When my teacher said that everyone needed to go sit on the carpet, I was the first one there!"  (He also got 4 "super stars", some sort of recognition for being good.)

"Mom, I didn't think about you at all until I was on the bus."

I guess that's good.  (sniff)

first day of Kindergarten

The important business of today is.....Seth started Kindergarten!

Lucky for us, his school doesn't start until 8:30- we aren't very early risers in our family. This morning, Seth came in my room at 6:45 and said "Do I need to get up and get ready for school?" We told him he couldn't get up until 7:00 and exactly 15 minutes later he walked back into our room. He had picked out the clothes for his first day weeks ago- he was so excited to wear his "army" shirt (thanks, Aunt Wendy!)

The morning went pretty smoothly, except for breakfast. I'm sure he was excited and nervous, but Seth hardly ate a thing. We all piled in the car and drove the 5 minutes it takes to get Seth to his new school. Jon waited in the car with the younger kids while I took Seth up to the front doors of his school and showed him where to stand in line. He got a little nervous and teary standing there with me, but he got it together in time for his teacher to appear and take them all inside.

Seth's school is a very old red brick split-level schoolhouse (I think the sign on the outside says 1927). The enrollment is very small, with only 2 classes per grade K-5. And to make things even better, his best friend, Brennan, is in the same class!

It's been about two hours since I dropped him off. The anxiety has worn off a bit, but I still miss him. What I really miss is his helpfulness in taking care of Maryn and Jonas. He is really good at keeping an eye on Jonas- making sure he stays out of trouble and making sure Maryn doesn't bully him. I've already had to break up squabbles this morning between the two kids.

I expect the anxiety to creep up again around the time school gets out. I'm letting him ride the bus home and I'm very, very nervous about that. But in this case, my logical brain won over my emotional brain because if he rides the bus home, it means that I don't have to wake up Jonas from his nap to go and pick him up. So I'm praying that the bus experience is good and safe. Only 5 more hours until he's supposed to be home.

My baby started school! I hope this gets easier with subsequent children.

August, oh August, I hardly knew thee

Where has this month gone?  I have been so busy and August has just flown by.  I have so many posts in my head waiting to be written.  (I think I need to be a daily blogger because when I realize that I haven't written in a while and so much has happened, I get overwhelmed and continue to procrastinate.)  Here's the list to help me remember everything that happened this month, more details coming soon-

1. I officially entered the last year of my twenties.  

2. A BFF (who also just happens to be my awesome sister-in-law) came to visit with her two cute kiddos.  She's now embarking on a new adventure, currently in the eye of Hurricane Fay. Yikes!

3. Seth is starting full-day kindergarten on Monday (25th) (and riding the bus, to top it all off).

4. Jon received a new calling at church.....he won't let me say what it is yet, so there's some suspense for you.

5. I have been watching hours and hours (and hours and hours) of the Olympics these past two weeks- haven't really been able to get much else done.

6.  Adding to my inability to get anything done- this month, I read The Host and just finished Breaking Dawn this afternoon.   

7. I finally finished a craft project that I started almost one year ago.  (Pictures coming soon.)  At this rate I may have trouble with my next endeavor...

8. I'm gearing up to open an Etsy store.

Phew.

  

my husband is famous and my kids are cute

Check out Jon in the pop culture blog-o-sphere.

And thanks to Mat for taking awesome pics of my kids.

We had a fun time with all our visitors this past week, thanks for coming to see us in the Midwest!

a boy of few words

The following are two short clips of Jonas talking. As you can see, his vocabulary is quite small and consists of about 5 words: Mom, Dad, ball, hi and eat.

what we've been up to

We are enjoying our beautiful summer here in the midwest. Humid- yes, but not too bad...yet. Because the sun doesn't go down until 8:30 pm, we have been spending many evenings after dinner at the pool or the park.

For the grandparents- more pics of our 4th of July fun and other July adventures here.

Jonas doesn't realize that he will have to endure many years of teasing later on for this picture (eh, Scotty? I think I feel a song coming on). But I'm simply trying to document his life. Because of the closeness in age (I think) Jonas loves to play with or do whatever Maryn is doing. This includes donning princess shoes. (The only reason Maryn allows this is because a little plastic heart broke off of one of the shoes and now she won't wear them.)

In other news, we got one of these. Still not sure how I feel about it. Sure it's fun, but is it really worth it?

Happy Summer!

Happy 4th!