Breaking New Ground: First Day of School, 2015

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around both of my boys starting school today. Desmond for the very first time. So far we have homeschooled the "Pre-K" year and then our kids go to a local school for Kindergarten on up. This saves us money on those Preschool years and gets me using my teaching degree. It was a challenge when I first homeschooled Malakai because I was doing all the lesson planning while juggling everything else and halfway through the year I was pretty sick while newly expecting Aurelia. We've lived and learned and are trying something new this year with Desmond. We are using a homeschool curriculum called Sonlight recommended by a handful of friends. Everything is planned out for me and it's largely book-based, which we love. I didn't have to do any late night planning while the kids slept, I didn't have to stress when Aurelia was a challenge at nap time and only napped half an hour because everything was ready for us when we were able to get to it.

My plan of action for having a kiddo in full-day school away from home is to prep as much as possible the night before. Malakai has his routines written out and posted (I started this to motivate him to wear clothing when he was a 3 year old and it just stuck). His clothes are put out, his lunch and snack for the next day (or two) are packed and ready, his backpack is stocked and set out and we are ready to roll for the following morning.

The hardest part is waking up at 6am after being up several times the night before. Aurelia's constant teething (she's working on her 8th) and frequent ear infections have trained her to frequently wake and need comforted back to sleep. However, even with a lack of good solid sleep, waking up before the kids really feels great in terms of being able to get myself ready for the day before needing to help them get breakfast and move forward with their to-do's.

It was so nice feeling like we got ready on time and even out the door early. We took some pictures with our cute little signs and loaded up the beloved mini-van. All of my good feelings unraveled when I had to navigate walking 3 kids 2 blocks with a vase full of flowers in one hand and a heavy bag of school supplies in the other while pushing a stroller and making sure the boys didn't get hit by a car because there were no sidewalks. Thankfully I kept my composure and we all lived to see the 1st grade. Malakai sorted out his supplies into the marked boxes (I'm so thankful he loves stuff like that) and disappeared into his classroom. Desmond gave the flowers to Kai's teacher because Malakai was too shy and then I lost him. I figured he was fine for a moment so I could at least say goodbye to Malakai, who didn't want a hug. Des was getting in to the toys, of course, and I'm just ever so thankful he didn't tantrum about not getting to stay and play with them.

We made it out the door, chatted with some friends on our way and headed home. Desmond said he didn't want to do "preschool home" yet which was fine because it was 9 am and I hadn't even had coffee yet. He played sweetly while I got Aurelia down for a late morning nap and we had 30 minutes to ourselves to go over our memory verse, days of the week, a few stories and work book time before she woke up again. By then he was asking for more and more school work. Thankfully I have a few extra workbooks that are only 90% colored by Malakai so he was able to hunt for some pages to finish while I prepared lunch.

It was odd to have Malakai gone for so many hours, but somehow they just flew by and it was nearly time to pick him up. We played together, the 3 of us and the house was eerily quiet for early afternoon.

Ben came home early so he could greet Kai at pick up since he wasn't able to make drop off. When we saw him he looked a little pale and a lot tired. He said he didn't feel well because he went in circles too fast on the tire swing. We sat in the shade for a bit while Des played on the play ground. I chatted with his teacher and he perked up enough to play a bit and cooperate for a few more first-day photos before we headed home and vegged out for their daily ration of screen-time.