Ever since my older son was born I have been looking forward to him going to kindergarten. Relax! I'm kidding! In all honesty, kindergarten did hold a certain appeal to me for a variety of reasons. First of all, I just loved kindergarten myself and I was looking forward to my son being able to experience it. Second, can we just say the bus? Yes, I know that a lot of parents don't like the bus. In fact, reactions to the bus seemed to be almost on the same level as formula feeding. However, in our town, all the kids go to one big kindergarten only school and the buses therefore are kindergarten only buses. My child would get to have a wonderful time at kindergarten, and I wouldn't need to drive him. What else could I ask for?
In the middle of the summer, we found out that he got off the waitlist for full day kindergarten. Seeing as getting a spot in full day kindergarten is like winning the lottery, I quickly accepted it and hoped that our lines hadn't been taped. Who knows who may have tried to impersonate me and deny the acceptance so their child could get in off the waitlist! I'm kidding! But we did quickly accept the spot.
The morning of the first day of kindergarten came this week. All of the sudden instead of being the relaxed Zen mom, alright I'm not ever really that, I was rushing around the house trying to get lunch packed, the backpacked packed, the name tag found etc. Basically stuff I thought I had prepared for the night before but actually putting it together took forever. I got him off without a problem but had used the time I normally prepare for our day to prepare for kindergarten so my younger son and I were over a half hour late to meet friends at the park. Yes, I used to run late all the time when they were babies, but for the past year and a half or so I'm pretty much always on time.
The afternoon came and all of the sudden it was just my younger son and me. He didn't have his brother to play with him. That meant I needed to do it. Sure, I play with my kids every day, but not the whole afternoon. Late afternoon came, and we had a bus mishap: my older son was put on the wrong bus. It was his birthday too. Everything ended up being fine, but I put on my best performance ever to not act as a panicked mother and freak out my kids and everyone else's.
The next day was pretty much a repeat of the day before except fortunately everything went well with the bus and I didn't have an hour worth of forms to fill out like I had the previous evening. I went to bed at 8:30 pm which is early for me. Friday was the last day. This time I sent in a lunch ticket. Again, pretty much the same as the day before had been.
Last night my husband commented on how tired I looked. I commented on how exhausted I felt. There was no denying that I was just wiped out from the week. I know that it will get better. I know that when I no longer have a birthday cake in my fridge my son and I can put together his lunch the night before so at least that will be better. I think what I was just so surprised by was that I was on major mom mode the whole day. I did even touch on getting him to Tae Kwon Do this week or the fact the my husband had two soccer coaching meetings this past week in the evening.
Somehow I had foolishly thought that I had made it past the rough part of parenting schedules only to realize that things had just shifted. It's like when you think that when your child is out of diapers that you'll suddenly have all this money when in fact the money is just being spent differently like on swim lessons and/or preschool.
Words of advice from any of you seasoned moms out there? I would greatly appreciate it. For the record, my younger one will be starting preschool two afternoons a week in a couple weeks.
I attended Mass this morning at our church. I'm not sure I can technically say "our" church since the only one going on a regular basis is my daughter. But today was Family Mass Day, so I rearranged my company's entire morning schedule (no joke) to be there.
