Mixed Bag Of Rant

I can’t believe it. My precious baby boy started Kindergarten this week!

I feel very lucky that this transition is such an easy one for us. He is attending Private Kindergarten at the same school he has been at since he was 3 months old. He knows his teacher (her son is about 6 months younger than Jackson and they have been in preschool and Pre-K together). No big scary bus. No new kids. Same place, just a different room. We are very strong advocates for Primrose Schools and have often told the former owners that Primrose needs to expand it’s program to include Elementary Education. We are believers that this school is one of the primary reasons for Jackson’s intelligence and manners. We are so sad that this is his last school year there but excited to start our baby girl there next March.

The first day of Kindergarten was not without it’s tantrums. Primrose Pre-K & K students are required to wear school uniforms. After 3 months of summer camp? He was not thrilled to put on the brown Merrill dress shoes. It was a fight and one that he lost.

You can see his disdain over the shoe fight in this photo

Ready for his 1st day!

He quickly recovered and we got ready to go. He was excited that BOTH his mommy and daddy were bringing him to school for once. We said our goodbyes and off he went all grown up and independent. Nothing but a wave and a smile.

All day at work, I thought about him. How was his day going? Was he able to keep up with the work? Was he getting along with his friends? Was he listening to his teacher? I couldn’t leave fast enough at 4:00p to get to him and hear about his day.

His first day of Kindergarten was good. When I picked him up, he barely even noticed me walking into the room he was having so much fun with his friends, playing CHESS (WHA??). He said the work was hard and he had trouble with one center and that he couldn’t “solve the problem”. Being a very excitable little boy, he had some trouble listening which we will keep an eye on. He said the best part of his day was “Playing tag.” So, as suspected, recess is still the best time of the day.

The start of this school year marked some new routines in our household. After a summer of relaxed routines and rules, we laid the hammer down. No more TV during dinner. No more eating dinner at the center island- but sitting down at the dining room table and having dinner as a family and talking about our days. Homework, when that starts, will be done after dinner and before any playtime. Bedtime is now a quiet bedtime snack and maybe one episode of a cartoon (preferably a more educational one) instead of a full-blown movie. We are now reading a couple books (he reads one to us (!!) and we read one to him) before laying down to sleep by no later than 8pm. We are working hard on getting him to go to bed independently before the baby comes.

I am so blown away at how awesome this kid is. I am such a proud mama this week!

No I’m not asking how I got pregnant. Pretty sure I got the memo on that.

I’m asking how my sweet baby boy got so big, so quickly! He graduated from Pre-Kindergarten a week and a half ago and oh, the pregnant lady hormones were a flowin’ (a.k.a. I cried a lot). I can hardly believe he will be starting Kindergarten in the fall. It is… surreal.

Walking down the aisle. Cue mommy tears.

Accepting his diploma. More tears.

He posed after getting his diploma. For a long time. Cue laughter. From everyone.

His best friend. They have been in the same class since they were infants.

I’m so proud of him. He has grown up so much, learned so much and is the greatest blessing in my life. I am often overwhelmed by how much I love him. I love being a mommy. I love being his mommy.

My head is spinning.

Firstly. I got the flu. The knock down, drag out, kick me in my ass flu. Where did I get it from? It is a mystery. Doctors won’t say it happens, but I got sick 5 days after I got my flu shot after being pretty healthy for the better part of 2012. Coincidence? I think not. Anyway it sucks. Really sucks. I cannot train for the Monster Dash given the fact I can barely walk two feet without busting out in a coughing attack. This means a lot of hard work over the last month down the drain. I am about a week out from being back up to speed. I am also singing in a wedding in 10 days. This bugger knocked me down for 8 days straight. My husband likes to think I was a total baby wuss. However, this wuss didn’t miss a day of work over it despite a body that ached from my hair to my toenails and a daily temp of 101. I’m hard core like that. Perhaps I’ll get over my issues with using PTO for sick time. I just feel like I need it for much better things like holidays and trips to Disney World (which I swear to you I’m going to blog about someday). Needless to say, after developing secondary infections (sinus & bronchitis) I got some strong antibiotics and I am slowly getting back on my feet again. Does anyone find it strange that not a soul around me got sick? Did I really keep my bubble that tight around me?

The second thing that has me in a tailspin is the fact that my always growing son is about to reach school age. There are a few things about this that have me mildly freaking out:

1) His age. He is one of those lucky kids who was born close to the age/grade cutoff. So what to do? Make the exception and send him to Kindergarten a year early? Wait a year? We feel like this one decision could be so important to the future of his education and we have no idea what the right choice is. If we send him early, will he be ready? Will he fall behind? If we send him later, will he be bored? What to do? What to do? Moms. I need you. What did you do with your late August/early September babies? Do you have any advice? Any regrets?

2) With being school age, we no longer have the comfort of him being in one place all day. Two full-time working parents have to figure out where to send their kid before and after the bell. To tell the truth, we both dislike the idea of having to do this at all. Both my husband and I were spoiled in the fact that we always had a parent waiting for us after school. Always there for that afternoon snack. Always there to remind us to get started on that homework. After feeling like I made the biggest decision ever in my career, changing jobs, changing companies… I am now re-thinking everything. I think my husband saw this coming a mile away, yet didn’t mention it. I both love and hate that he makes me figure these things out for myself. He knew I’d choose my son above all. However, this is all still a year or two down the road. My hope, and yes, this is lofty, is that my current job will either let me go part time or mostly remote. There are a number of my colleagues who this company has made concessions for and I can only hope that after a couple years of a strong performance, they will consider me an asset and do what they can to keep me. Like I said, lofty. The other option is to find freelance or part-time marketing work. The flip side of this is that my husband may go back to consulting and if he’s traveling, that will force me to be at home. There’s no way I could continue this job and these hours with him gone all the time. I wouldn’t do that to myself and I won’t do that to Jack.

3) We are also intrigued by the idea of a private education. We are impressed with our church’s K-8 school and suddenly, this option is now on the table. Is this crazy? So many of his preschool buddies are heading over to the public school. Will he even care? Will he even notice? The money isn’t a concern- it is actually less than we had been paying for these last 4 years of daycare. The classes are smaller. They teach religion. He’ll still be able to be in community league sports (if he wants). They get brand new Macs starting in 6th grade. This kind of feels like a no-brainer, right? I freaking HATED Catholic school. Now, I’m a girl though and girls are just innately evil and mean. Add rich to that and you’ve got a verifiable mean girl nightmare for a 10 year old girl. I begged my parents to send me to public school in the 6th grade and thankfully, they complied. They pulled my brother out too although, I’m not entirely sure why. Money? Perhaps. Thing is… I learned that pubic school girls can be as equally nasty as the private school ones. Ugh. Why does this matter? I’m just on the fence. We live in a wonderful school district and I’ve heard nothing but great things about the public schools. What to do? Help a mama out here.

So many things going on… so many important decisions to make. Nobody ever said that being a mom (and a professional and a wife) was easy.