First Hour of School

Despite my angst ridden post last week, for the little Kindergarten folk, this was officially more the last week of summer, than the first week of school, they get to catch a little break that the older kids don’t get. We spend last weekend on a “vacation” to Cottonwood, which was a bit more upscale than our “vacation” to Sandy (you are right at the mouth of the canyon, and the house are nicer) but didn’t have the advantage of a Target across the street. We did 2 nights this time, and Jake liked the outdoor pool though, in fact he spent about 9 hours in it Saturday (mommy got a lot of reading done). It’s amazing to me with his red hair, how well he does in the sun, I was in the shade all day (at least I thought I was) and still got a bit sunburned (even with the SPF 50) but Jake did fine. During the week Jakey and I have a pretty good routine, but we’re still a bit unsure of what to do on weekends, so we’ve been taking advantage of my Marriott benefits and checking out all the hotels within driving distance.

Jake’s first official day of school went of without a hitch, it was agony as far as he was concerned waiting all the way until 11:30, and in that time he decided that he couldn’t wait for Kindergarten and that he was too scared to go, and therefore was going to wait and start kindergarten next year oh, about 30 times. By the time we got to Scott and Circe’s (he wanted to walk the first day, there was no way he was driving) to go with Freestone, he was a bit nervous. Jake’s being nervous is so much like me that it’s scary, he just basically stops talking, and I could see his little back get stiffer, and stiffer, as he concentrated on just putting one foot in front of the other. I’ve done that walk so many times in my life, that I know it when I see it, the one where you want to hurry and run away, but you know it’s not an option, so you just have to dig in and do it. When we walked in the door to school, I felt a little hand slip into mine, which was the first time Jake has voluntarily held my hand in months (he’s too big for hand holding in public now), which made mommy smile. Once he got into the classroom though, he sat down without a backward glance (well he came back for a quick hug, and reassurance that he would love Kindergarten). As far as I could tell it was all much harder on the moms than on any of the kids, although I have to admit I’m glad my kid wasn’t the one that had to be peeled of my leg screaming while I pushed him into the room and ran away from the door as fast as possible (one poor mom had to do that). My heart couldn’t have taken that.

After school the official report from Jake was that “Kindergarten isn’t bad or anything, it just wasn’t that much fun, like you said it would be”, considering it only lasted an hour this week, I figure it’s only going up from there.

We went back for a quick half hour on Wednesday to do the state pre-K assessment testing, which went well also. How many “good mommy” points do I get subtracted if I admit that I had no idea that Jake knows half the things he does? In fact when I quiz him he pretty much refuses to respond (I would be a horrible home schooler), so I was a bit nervous he would be the kid "way behind" (we have to spent these precious early years learning song lyrics for future blogging, not doing flash cards) but listening to him do his assessment he did great. He was just a bit confused when we got to the “so you live with you cousins’ ” part of the day (Jake and I are “living” with Scott and Circe so he can go to Morgan Elementary), so if it comes up, “living with” someone means “hanging out and playing with them while mom goes to work”. I wouldn’t be a very good spy either, I almost got confused 3 times myself as to where I live at this point, I'm guessing it's not cool to be 39 and get confused on your address when filling out school paperwork.

Tonight is “back to school night” for the parents, so Jake is going to hang out at Scott and Circe’s (because we live there obviously, right?), and Scott and I are doing the back to school night thing (I think mine will only last 20 minutes, Scott is stuck with at least 10 minutes per kid).

We plan to head up to Idaho to the cabin for the long weekend, we’ll leave Friday after work and come home Monday night, although I have Tuesday off, and Jake doesn’t have school until the afternoon, so we may head back Tuesday morning.

Poor Jake won’t know what hit him as his days of leisure are over, but if he’s lucky he might get a “vacation” to Layton in the near future, so pool time isn't over yet!!!