night and day

We had our first day of "I don't want to go to school today, the work is hard." Seriously, we heard that every day last year. Now let me say, I'm sure it is challenging for him at times. But I know too that we have some supports in place for him to not feel so overwhelmed. He has complained that when he asks Mrs. M for help, she says "Dahling, I know you can do this." (That statement said with a welsh accent, love it.) We snuggled for a while and then got up and went about our normal morning routine. He journaled and was drawing a picture of a 13 legged green monster when I left.

Karen (his teacher) stopped me to say that he is a changed child this year. Of course, I have been feeling this way myself, but I wanted to hear it from someone who deals with him in his school environment. She said he plays with many different people and is very social. My heart sings with this info. Sometimes it is the little things in life that can make you feel like dancing.

am I blue?

I try, I really do try to remain up about the state of my life these days. Sometimes, I just get down about how I feel there is no upwards movement. Really, I don't have room to complain. My kids are healthy and happy, we have food to eat and a roof over our heads. Something is missing though and I don't know what it is. How can I fix it if I don't know what is broken.

boys...

Elijah is a typical boy. He is tough, has a great group of friends and is heavily into sports. Sam on the other hand, has taken a slower path and also a "less typical", less traveled path into boyhood. He is a first grader now and becoming more swayed by funny boy things. He told me he saw a girls butt the other day. I wouldn't have thought that he knew the difference and why that would be funny, but they laughed about if for two days and it had to be a secret. He is making friends more easily, he doesn't seem as intimidated by large groups and he has become very independent. I am so happy that he thought a butt was funny.

On being important

When you have children, you cross paths with a variety of people. Some become your friends forever and some you have things in common with for just a time in your life. We met one such family this summer while Elijah played baseball. Lori, Pete, Nathaniel, Gabriel and Eliza were one such family. Nathaniel is 7, Gabriel is 5 and Eliza is 3. Lori died on Saturday. It just doesn't make sense to me. I hug me kids a little harder every day and thank G-d that we are healthy. I wish you Pete the strength and love from others that you will need to continue along the path that you and Lori started together. I am sorry for your loss.

First day and all of that important stuff

Last Wednesday was the first day of school for the boys. This is not the face we saw on the first day of Kindergarten, in fact it was quite the opposite. With tears streaming down his face(and mine) Sam informed me that "he hated school and was never going back." This is when I stepped and became a Kindergartener for the next five weeks. He adjusted fine it just took over a month to get there. His wonderful teacher Mrs. M had faith in him and even invited me to stay to help him adjust. He had a good year, grumbling throughout from time to time, but he did it.

Flash forward to First grade. I thought this one out. I knew a lot of things would be different and needed to plan ahead to make this a smooth ride for us all. Because our wonderful building had been outgrown with the addition of a seventh grade this year, we were moving into a swing space for at least two years while our permanent site is being renovated. The building is a former middle school, and it is HUGE! A little intimidating for this mom let alone the little people that will inhabit it for 30+ hours a week. During the summer, we did a couple of drive by's and arranged to visit the week before school started. We went every day for a week and just walked the halls, found bathrooms, the office and cafeteria, you know all of the important things. It felt great, I was getting very excited for the boys. The best part(according to a 6 and 8 year old)...lockers! The locks were removed and the children get to store their belongings in lockers. Who knew? Sam went to bed saying he couldn't wait until the next day so he could go see his locker. He wakes up in the morning talking about how he is going to go say hello to his locker. It(the locker) has become the reason why he absolutely LOVES school now. I don't know who this child is anymore.