The 1st Week

Here are the TOP 5 things I want to remember about Max's 1st week of kindergarten:

1. On Wednesday Max's bus driver didn't drop him off at the stop. I was standing at the corner and watched her drive past without stopping. Jeff chased her down at the next corner and she came back around to drop him off. Her response, "He's so little and so quiet, I just didn't think about it." OK well, this means that I will be watching her like a hawk the rest of the year to make sure my baby doesn't end up sleeping in the bus garage. I also told Max to pay attention and when he sees his house to stand up and start yelling, "THAT'S MY HOUSE! THAT'S MY HOUSE!" Maybe that will help her remember :)

2. Max loves PE. I can see why that is his favorite class so far. They can't have recess because of the heat wave so PE is their only chance to running around a bit. I asked him what he did in PE that was so fun and he said, "Mom, we learned to stand like cheerleaders!" Not sure what that meant but he was excited. However, Jeff was not!

3. He came home Friday with a stack of papers from this week's work. I looked through them and was QUITE impressed--TOO impressed, really. I asked him how he made his numbers look so neat on his math paper (as his mother, I know he doesn't write that well). He said, "Oh I couldn't make those numbers too good, so somebody else did them for me." I asked who and he said it was some girl but he couldn't remember her name. I asked who helped him draw the picture and spell the words that I could tell were not his work. He said it was his friend next to him. We had a talk about the importance of doing our own work so we get the practice that we need to learn to do better. I don't think it's going to stick.

4. Max left his lunch box on the bus on Thursday. When he realized this at home, he began crying and screaming because "I'm going to starve at school with no lunch ALL YEAR LONG!!" Originally I was laughing too hard at him to console him, but after about 10 minutes of sobbing I told him it wasn't a big deal. He would either find it the next day or we would get him another one and in the meantime he could bring his lunch to school in a paper sack. This didn't help and he cried himself to sleep. He's been very tired.

5. The kids watch Letter Factory and The Magic School Bus while they are waiting for their busses in the afternoon. Max comes home and tells me verbatim what the TV show was about. Every detail, every scene, quotes from it, the whole thing. I ask about the rest of his day and he says, "Oh, we did a bunch of stuff. I can't remember it though." Hopefully he will learn more in kindergarten than TV shows and how to get other kids to do his work, but those are useful skills too!

So there you have it. We survived the first week of school. Zach is still a little lost with out Max to tell him what to do and Max is so tired that he cries about something each afternoon around 4:30, but hopefully we will fall into a routine of sorts soon and this will become our new normal. I still can't believe my baby is in kindergarten. And I can't believe how quiet my house is without him here.