Kindergarten here I come!

I know I promised a post on Owen starting Kindergarten the night he started, but as you can guess that things have been very busy and I was throwing up yesterday so Tony helped me with the daycare. So today is the first time I have had a chance to tell Owen's story.

He started out the day extremely excited and happy and had me make his lunch for him and load down his backpack with lots of things for school. My mom took care of the daycare kids and my other boys so that Tony and I could both take Owen to school that morning.

When we got to the school, all of the teachers were lined up with signs with their names on it and the kids were supposed to line up behind their teacher. So we lined Owen up in line and stood beside him. Luckily two of the kids he went to preschool with are in his class. It was so cute, this little girl Salem that he went to preschool with was so excited to see Owen and asked him if he'd eat lunch with her that day. That almost made me cry because the two things I was most worried about was if he'd know what to do during lunch time and having someone to play with at recess. Isn't that ridiculous? :) Oh well. I know he has classroom experience so I wasn't worried at all as to how he'd do in the classroom. It was those other things that he wasn't used to doing by himself that worried me. I didn't want him to worry about what he was supposed to be doing or feel lonely because he had nobody to sit or play with.

So we lined him up and then when it was time to walk into school all the parents followed his class into the classroom. All of the kids sat at their desks and all of the parents stood off to the side to make sure their kid got seated okay. His teacher, Mrs. Lien (pronounced Lynn) gave a few announcements and after about 5 minutes or so asked the parents if they had any last questions, making it obvious that it was time for our departure. So I said Bye Owen and he smiled and waved at me and we walked out. I did rather well I think because I only started to cry just the tiniest bit after walking out of the room and then was fine by the end of the hallway, then I started crying in the car when we were a block from our house but was fine by the time we go to our house. So that was a lot better than I thought. I thought I'd be sobbing all day long. Owen didn't cry at all, so I think we both did very well.

At pick up time he looked very tired, but was holding his friend Salem's hand while they waited to be released. He was very excited and talked all about his day. He even wanted to buy a milk with his lunch on Tuesday.

Yesterday went well too and he said that he was the only one that followed directions (which is not hard to believe because away from Mommy and Daddy he does not misbehave and does WHATEVER the person of authority tells him to do).

Today, however, had NOT been a good day. At about 9:45 or 10 this morning I got a phone call from his teacher saying that he'd been crying all morning and wanted his daddy to come get him. She said he had stopped crying when she had told him she'd call home to tell me he was sad but that he was going to have a better rest of the day. We agreed it was best to not put him on the phone because that might start the tears all over again, and she wanted to call me so that he could see that he could trust her when she said that she would call me. Then at noon she called back to give me an update and say that he hadn't cried from the time she had called me and he had done much better but right when they were getting their lunches out to line up for lunchtime, he looked a little teary eyed again and said he wasn't hungry. He was due back from lunch a few minutes after I talked to her, so she was going to find out if he ate anything or not from the teacher's aide. I'm sad for him, but it makes me feel better that 3 or 4 other kids having had crying days today too and then my friend Sheila's son who started Kindergarten Monday at a different school has already started complaining of tummy aches. So it must just be that the excitement has worn off a bit and the realization has set in that this is the routine and that hit home today for a few of the kids. So keep him in your prayers for the rest of the week that we don't have to battle over school. :(

Below are some pictures of his first day. Tomorrow night is Raymond's preschool open house and Monday we get to find out what the sex of the baby is!!!! I want you all to give me your guess before then! :) Sorry that their is nothing to report about Judd, other than that he is a complete 1 1/2 year old and copies EVERYTHING that his big brothers do and gets into everything. Have a great weekend, I'll post on Monday night what we are expecting.