1st day of Kindergarten

So the big day finally came...the first day of school! Carter & Mason have been anticipating this day with great excitement for at least a year! Through their preschool aged years our method of "school time" mostly consisted of "learning as we go." I taught the boys many things throughout out the days as we did life. The stroller and the car seemed to be great moments of learning for us probably becuase they were trapped! :) For the past year we have had "school time" at home where I did a bit more teaching with them sitting at table, working on a learning website (pbskids, etc). Consistency was spotty this spring as I struggled with early pregnancy sickness. We hit it "hard" this summer on letters, letter sounds, numbers, and being able to write them all. Thankfully that has paid off. I was curious how they would do at MCAG having never been to any formal preschool. So far so good. We'll see how things go as the semester progresses.

My challenge this past month was to back up our "late" schedule to prep for getting up and going to bed early. For a while now my boys have gone to bed at 9 or 9:30pm and slept until 9 or 9:30am. This is my natural rythmn as well so it worked great for us for a year or two. Those glory days are over and we are on a much earlier schedule again. The boys have done well getting up at 7:30am with their new alarm clock. I knew they would be really tired after school, but I forced them to stay away so they could go to bed early and fortunately, they have crashed by 8:30pm! :) I've been thrilled at all I have accomplished in my days after getting up at 6:45am but have been pretty exhausted this week, especially being 8.5 months pregnant!

The reports I got from the boys' teacher, Mrs. Miller and my friend Laura Shuman were that my boys loved their 1st day of school. Throughout the day, Mason continually exclaimed, "this is so much fun!" He was encouraging all of his classmates! This is classic Mas and makes Cam & I laugh to think he wasn't phased by the 1st day of school. Mrs. Miller told me that she things Mason is the most extroverted in his class and she was going to move his desk to put him by some quieter kids! Carter has loved school this week too. He looks and thinks and takes it all in at first and then joins the social scene. 3 days down and they both keep saying they love school.

As an aside, I will mention that I only cried in the car after I left the boys on Tuesday. I cried for about 3 streets and then moved on to the errands at hand. Preregistering at the hospital was nice to do without any kids running around!

The boys with their kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Miller:





Our fam of 4 (almost 5) on the boys' first day of school:
Mason:
Carter:
At home before loading up for school: