school

My view when I came down the stairs on the 1st day of school.  Sigh.

The boys started school this week.  They will be going to school Monday – Thursday from 8:30am – 11:30am.  It was really hard to get them excited about school because they could grasp very little about the concept.  We bought the book “The Night Before Preschool” and we read it before bed about a bazillion times.  We also visited the school on several occasions because some of our appointments happened to take place at the same location.  We also got a visit at our house from their teachers, Miss. Stacey and Miss.  Ashley, about a week before the boys went to school.  But even with all that the idea of school was completely foreign to them.  And it didn’t help that the boys had been sick leading up to the start of school.  So I guess it should have come as no surprise that the first day of school was a bit bumpy.

"I walk school Momma." (too bad we live about 3 miles away)

Alex did not sleep all that great the night before school and either did Mommy and Momma.  Alex is very clingy when he does not feel good.  Both boys had a minor cold but it was enough to make sleep difficult for Alex.  So the last few nights have resulted in a lot of cuddles during the night.  I spent the majority of one night laying beside Alex’s crib.  He would only sleep if I was next to him.  My little boy has super sonic ears and as a result any time I tried to sneak out of the room he would start to scream and cry.  So I embraced the challenge and spent a long night with my little boy.  I was afraid we were going to fall in a bad pattern because he repeated this pattern, thought in smaller spurts, for several nights in a row.  But now that he is feeling better he seems to be just fine being alone at night.  Yay!  So anyhow the first day of school we awoke with some cranky children.  And while our boys easily get up early every morning they only function at a slow speed.  We essentially have 60 minutes to change diapers, get dressed, brush hair, brush teeth, eat breakfast, drink milk and put on shoes.  Simple!  What takes an adult a total of 10 minutes can take a toddler 3 hours.  So by the time we got the boys in their car seats they were screaming bloody murder.  And then it happened … the car would not start!!  NOOOO!!

My big boys!!

I had changed the boys in the trunk of the car the day before and one of the little stinkers must have turned on the light in the trunk.  Our car battery was dead.  This would not have been a major problem had car seats not been involved in the situation.  But while we have two cars only one of the cars has car seats (those buggers are too expensive to own 4 of them).  So we all pile out of the car and Kara starts to put the car seats in the other car.  The boys think this is the best thing EVER!  And of course they are now running around all excited about the trip we are going to take in the special car.  And then during the chaos Jakob managed to get hold of the garage door opener.  He proceeds to hit the button to close the garage door.  This is not a big problem except for the fact that the CRV was parked in the garage with the trunk open.  There is a metal piece on the garage door that will scrap up the entire back of the car trunk if the trunk of the car is open while the garage door is put down.  Needless to say I immediately screamed “God Da*#! Jakob Daniel!” all while diving to get the opener out of his hands.  I was too late.  Sigh.  Okay.  No big deal.  This is why we don't have nice things.  We finally get the kids in the car and we are off to school.  And by the hair of our chin we manage to only arrive about 15 minutes late.

"Me get snacks Momma."

The boys were clingy as we walked into the school.  It was busy.  And of course the surroundings were fairly new to them.  The class is comprised of 8 students and 2 teachers.  All the kids in the class were born in either May 2012 or June 2012 so everyone is really close in age.  There are 2 girls and 6 boys in the class.  The developmental delay of each of the kids is all across the board.  It appears as if it is going to be a perfect mix of children.  The teachers have already indicated that the kids get along great.  So as soon as we walked in the room we noticed most of the kids were clinging to their parents.  But our little Jakob had some other plans.  Jakob immediately got down from Kara’s arms and screamed “TOYS!” while running around like a crazy man.  And much to my surprise Alex scooted out of my arms and followed his brother.  They could have cared less that we were about to leave them for the day.  We suddenly looked at each other with the thought, “How bad will it look if we are the first parents to leave the room?”  The good news is the enthusiasm of the boys seemed to rub off on the other kids and soon others were joining in on the fun.  Kara and I went over to the boys and gave them kisses and hugs and then we hightailed tip-toed out of the room.  They never even batted an eye.

I will admit that while Kara and I had to tend to getting the car battery fixed we were both still very lost when we left that school.  We seriously had zero idea what to do with ourselves.  It was the most bizarre feeling in the world.  And after about only 30 minutes we were really missing the little buggers.  Plus we were excited to get back and hear all about their first day.  So after what only seemed like minutes we were back at the school for pick-up time.  And our hearts melted as we turned the corner and saw the boys walking out of the classroom with their backpacks on.  Their little faces just lit up when they saw Momma and Mommy.  It was great.

 It's time to go home.

The boys have now been in school a week and already seem to be progressing in their development.  It has blown us away.  This is especially apparent in Mr. Alex.  This week has brought much more babble from our quiet man.  We now hear him all the time “talking to himself” and it is AMAZING.  We take Alex to speech tomorrow and I am really excited to get some feedback from his speech therapist.  We love the school and we feel so extremely blessed that the boys are able to be part of such a wonderful program at no cost to us.  They are being exposed to so much diversity all the while receiving such wonderful intervention services.  Our hearts are full.

Mary