The realities of Kindergarten

Well, we're 2 weeks into Kindergarten and the kids are doing pretty well, all things considered! I will attempt to outline all the good and bad things about kindergarten and not make this too long of a post. Some day, I would like to look back at this post and marvel about their first few days of their school career!

First the good. They LOVE their teachers and I have to say, I am also very pleased with their teachers. They have been very excited to get to school each morning (Grace and Will run all the way there!). Their teachers have been great about communication with us and they've all been coming home with little awards (they have a thing called a "NOW" kid, which they will give them a little paper rewarding them for doing something within 3 seconds of being told). Xander also brought home an award that said he was "caught being good". We also got a nice email from Grace's teacher. So, I am very pleased with their behavior so far.

They've also had some homework, if you can believe it! It's only been coloring, writing or tracing, but homework, nonetheless. They've actually been really excited about it. I have them do it right when they get home so we get it out of the way. The homework begins already!

We've made them eat hot lunch everyday for the past 2 weeks. Partly for simplicity in the mornings and partly to get them to try some new things and get the hot lunch experience. We have a feeling if we let them, they would eat cold lunch everyday. I think now we'll let them take cold lunch once or twice a week, but I do think they like several hot lunch offerings now and will eat that more often than not. It's nice not to scramble making lunches on an already busy morning.

So, here's the challenges we are facing with kindergarten. Let's start with the mornings. Their school starts at 8:08, so it is a big challenge to get everyone ready and out the door (and I haven't even started work yet. It's going to get work when I have to get out of the door by 7:30 myself!) Xander has been telling me every morning lately that his stomach hurts. I've been sending him to go potty, and he will but comes back and says it still hurts and he thinks he is going to throw up. He's done this almost everyday before school. It finally occurred to me maybe he was feeling nervous. I've been asking him when I pick him up how his stomach felt and he says "It stopped hurting when I got to school." I would like to talk to his teacher about it, but I think this just may be an adjustment thing.

The afternoons are also very challenging. The three kids that come home from school are not my kids. Those kids are grumpy, wound up, on a short fuse and generally strung out. It takes me repeating myself 4 times to get them to do something simple like hang up their backpacks. And forget practicing the piano!! I actually didn't make them practice the first week of school and I only got two practices out of them last week. We'll try for more this week and see what happens. The day is just so long and they sit for so long that they're terrible when they come home. Several days last week were too hot to play outside at 3:00 when they got home, so I had to deal with them inside. Plus, they've not been getting enough to eat for lunch (or maybe I should say, haven't been eating enough) so they are starving when they get home. They have been eating huge snacks including but not limited to yogurt, any fruit I will cut up, string cheese, granola bars, and any sweets I will let them have. And they've been eating HUGE quantities of dinner. I'm actually going to have to cook bigger dinners and cook more often, just to keep up.

Our evening aren't really much better. We've actually been putting them to bed at 7:30 every night, just so they get enough sleep. So, basically we eat and clean up dinner by 7, then go directly to getting ready for bed. Some evening, one or more of them are just so tired that they completely melt down and just get put straight into bed (this has happened more than once to Xander and once to Will). They sleep like logs and we've had a mix of having hard mornings and easy to get up mornings.

We started soccer this weekend (more on that later) and they also start Cherub choir rehearsals at church on Wednesdays. I start teaching piano after Labor Day, I also start at school after Labor Day. I don't think they realize how busy we're going to get!

So, that's it. The good, bad, and ugly about kindergarten. I think the bottom line is that, despite the few challenges, they really are doing well. I start volunteering this week in their classes, so I am excited to see what they're doing every week. I think we're off to a good start! Thanks for checking on us!