Kindergarten.

I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that my oldest child is now in kindergarten. Such a weird and crazy thing! Its been an awesome week! Jack has been counting down the days till school starts and he’s had his back pack all ready to go for about a month. Jack’s first official day was August 13th. Parents were required to come that day, and they did not ride the bus to school. I went along with him and it was such a neat thing to experience.

They went around the room participating in a bunch of activities and basically learning all about their classroom (where the bathroom is, how loud the toilet flushes, where their mailbox and locker is located, etc). Then they sat on the rug and his teacher, Mrs. Chaffee, read a story. They chatted a bit with the teacher and then they finished the morning coloring while Mrs. Chaffee talked with all of the parents. While on the story time rug, Jack sat next to his best little buddy, Jase, who Jack has been friends with since they were 2 years old. Jase is quite shy and was very upset and crying while they were sitting on the floor. Jack kept patting Jase’s back and saying nice things like “It will be ok. I miss my mommy too. I’ll be your friend. You’ll be just fine, Jase. Look, you can see your mommy right over there!” My heart was MELTING as I observed Jack being such a good friend. The teacher called out each child’s name and they were supposed to raise their hands. When she said “Jackson Beers”, Jack raised his hand as high as he could and said “I’M RIGHT HERE, MRS. CHAFFEE!!” and then he helped Jase raise his hand when she called out his name. I am so proud of him for being such a caring friend.

The next day was the first day of kindergarten with no parents! And he rode the bus to school! Wow, that was a crazy thing to observe! Jase and Jack get on the bus at the same time and they held hands as they walked right up the bus, said “hello” to the bus driver, found a seat together and just sat right down! No big deal!

I picked them both up from school (kindergarten is just ½ day, so we have to pick him up everyday). I asked 100 questions, and they didn’t really want to share a whole lot, so after a while I stopped asking questions…..they did, however, tell me that it took a long time to get to school and they had to pick up a bunch more kids (they are on the bus for about 15 minutes total) but that the bus ride was really fun. His favorite part of the day was recess (of course) and they went to the library and the “librarier” read them a story. It was sweet to listen to him retell a few things about his day, but I would have LOVED to be a fly on the wall in his classroom to see what it was like!

It is a little weird to think that he’ll be learning from someone else now and he’ll be spending a lot of his time away from us. I’m so proud of him and so excited for his future.