Amy J. Bennett

Um, today turned out ok after all but I’m realizing there are a whole bunch more school we have to do!  Yeah, cuz I catch on quick like that.  I’m not so much worried as I am, oh my goodness, I have to wake up at 6:30 AGAIN tomorrow.  Get Emma dressed AGAIN tomorrow.  Make a PB&J AGAIN tomorrow.  Oh my word.  Let’s just  hope Scott says let’s go to Starbucks AGAIN.

OK, this video is a bit long and probably for the avid reader. I feel it should alternatively should be called “Amy speaks in a high voice and sees how many questions she can ask in five minutes while Emma tries NOT to smile or talk.” I do hope you get the gist though that it ended up being a good day.

Wow, picking her up turned into a 45 minute event today! Once things got moving though it was a very fast process. For the Kindergartners, they individually walked them out to the car which I liked. Of course I have video but basically she was in that “so excited but keeping mum with a grin on her face” mode. Which is a good thing! A few things of note…she said there were two girls she played with (I think two from the orientation Monday), she only ate 1 grape, 1 cracker, a few bites of her PB&J and then both cookies, her lunch bag broke, her teacher read her The Kissing Hand and best of all…she liked it and wants to go back tomorrow! Yippee!!

I’ll update this with the video soon…it’s taking too long!

The deed is done.  Emma is at school right now.  Emma got pretty nervous today.  As soon as we got out of the van and started to see how many kids were there (there are 950 at her school and probably half of them were walking in from the local neighborhood) she teared up.  CG got to the school right when we did so they were able to walk in together but Emma still clung to me.

We got in the class and she teared up again.  As soon as she started, I started welling up.  I gave her a quick hug while the assistant took her, grabbed a tissue and headed out the door.  I cried a bit walking down the hall with several other mothers.  In fact, you could see a stream of parents walking the kids to class and the ones going back up the hall the other way were childless with tears.  At least I wasn’t alone.

I had a little cry in the van and then Scott took me to Starbucks and made it all better.   I’m trying not to think about the fact she might be upset but I know her teacher was very responsive to her. I actually saw her through the window when we were driving away and she was walking around the class holding the assistant’s hand.

Anyway, we’re making it.  I can’t wait to hear about it this afternoon and see how she did.  And of course I took some video this morning. *Jaynee is telling me she wasn’t crying when she left so I feel a bit better. You can link over to her post and see Emma in a few pics.

I spoke too soon.  I already cried tonight.  At bedtime just now Emma got really quiet and she was in her thinking stare.  I asked her what she was thinking about and she said how did you know I was thinking about something?  I said I just did.  She told me she didn’t want to go to school.  I told her I she had to and asked if she was scared and I think she shook her head.  I told her it’s just like preschool and she loved preschool.  She said It’s just different.  I asked her if there was something that she didn’t like or if it was just different and she said just different.  I asked what was different and she said the playground is different.  It has bikes and a hamburger (that’s what they call one of the sets).  She said the classroom had computers.  I said well isn’t that all good things?  I tried to tell her different wasn’t bad and she liked school last year even though she had a different teacher.  I tried to convince her that she’d love it.  All while fighting back tears.  Trying to convince my own self that this change is ok. They say kids are tough and can adapt to change well but I guess sometimes it’s hard for them too.

I was ok with this until she got nervous.  I happily put her to bed and then came out to the kitchen and cried in the dark.  Scott asked me earlier why I was stressed since I wasn’t the one going to school.  I said, No, but a part of me is.  Dang it, this mommying thing is hard.

OK, tomorrow is the big day.  Emma’s first day of Kindergarten.  We had to go tonight to pick up a notebook and divider that the teacher requested on Monday.  We took the kids to get ice cream since they were having a .50 ice cream special for back to school.

Tonight Emma picked out her outfit.  It’s a cute little oversized flowered shirt with tights and silver slip-ons.  So cute.  We then made a list of what she wanted me to pack for her lunch and packed what we could tonight.  Yesterday we went over the school list for this week and next week and there were four days she wanted to eat there and the rest she wants to take a lunch.  I’m good with that.  I filled out the parking passes, her name tag and went through all the rest of the papers.

The girls are playing the last bit of Wii and there supposed to be in bed by 8:30 tonight.  Who knows when they’ll finally fall asleep.  At least we tried.  I am NOT looking forward to waking up at 6:30 tomorrow. I might just cry because I’m so tired.

I can’t tell if I’m going to cry or not but I feel good about tomorrow.  If anything I might cry because of relief of having the first day over with.  God has been whispering “She’s going to be fine” to me the past few days.  It does my soul well.  After the past week, I can see she really needs some learning time and I know she’ll do great and love it.  Right now she seems content with going although not overly excited.

I think I’m going to have to call it an early night tonight just so I can function in the morning.

That really should be the name of some health foods grocery store because that’s how I felt visiting our new local Health Foods grocery store.  Ours is called Earth Fare.  I have no idea if they are nationwide, regional or just local.  It’s a bit out of my way so I had to make a special visit to it but we will be back there for sure.

I’m sure we’re just getting caught up with the rest of America but basically this entire store is like the Organic/Healthy parts of a regular store all put into one store and then exploded.

After a few aisles I realized you don’t need to look at labels.  It’s like someone read all the labels for you and then put it on the shelf if it passed.  The girls both pushed their own buggies and had a blast doing it.  It was only a pain if they started running or when they weren’t watching and either completely trashed a display or ran into the back of my ankle.  I think those buggies are specifically designed to hurt parents.  Ouch!

I loved the vibe of the place and they had organic everything.  Even pop tarts made with whole wheat!  Loved that.  Their milk is all in glass bottles and you get a $2 credit for bringing them back so the prices aren’t too much more than the store.  And the chocolate milk is excellent

The only downside to the place is the price.  Yes, it’s more expensive.  Don’t go to a place like that if you’re trying to tighten your budget!  But I’m trying to think of it as spending a little more now so we don’t have to spend a lot later on health care.  I know there are a ton of things that could still happen if though we change our diet but at least I’m doing what I can!