A Big Day for All of Us

Today was the much-anticipated first day of school. I set my alarm for 7:02am (I'm not on the gym schedule yet, baby steps people baby steps) and ended up incorporating the alarm into my dream, thus causing me to hit snooze repeatedly until I finally got up at 7:50...good grief. We did have family prayer though, so that was a morning first.


The kids were dressed and ready by the time I got up, so I only ended up pouring them bowls of cereal and helping with their lunches. I had originally planned on making a festive breakfast, but was so disoriented from my dreams and from oversleeping that I didn't end up doing anything special. It reminded me of last year on the first day of school so I ran to the computer to check last year's post and sure enough, I needed a do-over then too.


I felt like a complete spazz when it came to packing the kids' lunches. I have never done this before! Sure, I make them lunches all the time, but this was so official and seemed more important because it had to last them for 3.5 hours until school got out. I was trying to make it well-balanced, yet realistic. I had frozen their juice boxes last night so they'd be nice and cold for them (victory) but my idea to freeze the applesauce so it would be cold didn't work out so well, it was still frozen hard at lunch time. I'm wondering if I should still freeze them but then set them out the night before. Any ideas about this?


This morning, we drove to the school and had to park around the block and then walk a little way. I stopped to talk to Landon and make sure he knew where to go and then looked up to see Whitney half way down the sidewalk to where her class lines up! Not so much as a "See ya Mom" or anything. What is up with that? Apparently she was very excited and not at all nervous to go, so she just left. Landon gave me a glazed look and nodded as I tried to talk to him (apparently he had things under control and was tuning me out), so I finally hugged him and sent him on his way. I stood there for a second thinking how this was not the first day of school farewell I had envisioned!

There was no trauma, no tears, no moment of longing or anything. It was what it was.


I ended up having a marvelous day all by myself (I had to keep reminding myself that I didn't have to do everything I wanted/could do all in one day). I ran a few errands, did 3 loads of laundry, blogged off and on throughout the day, talked to Michelle and Claudia on the phone, and mailed some books I sold on Amazon (I'm loving that). I ended up being 10 minutes early to pick up the kids (I was coming from Target) so I had some quality eye-brow plucking time in the car while I waited. I was seriously overdue for some plucking, and can't believe how many gray hairs I'm getting in my eyebrows; they're so much harder to see when they grow in underneath that I end up not realizing they're there and then suddenly see them and let out a little yelp!


This is Landon after school today giving me the double thumbs up! Hooray! He knew 5 kids in his class (all from church), likes his teacher, liked recess, and said the math test they took was easy.


Whitney came out smiling as well, but then acted shy in front of the camera. The first thing she reported was the Oreos and Skittles she got to eat in class! Oh my.


I took the kids to Sonic and we ended up waiting like 20 minutes for our treats so I got the whole update on both of their days with no interruptions. They had great days and are very excited about everything.

For those of you wondering why Landon is going to public school this year instead of doing home school this is the answer: he wanted to go.

I never set out to do home school, it just kind of worked out that way after the religious, private school Landon went to for kindergarten disintegrated. Amie and I had both planned to trade secretarial work for tuition for our kids but then the school got a new principal and he wasn't keen on that idea. So suddenly we were scrambling for a new option. We ended up going to a seminar about k12.com and were completely sold on it. We both left the meeting shaking our heads and saying "home school??"


But after our kids had had such a great year at the private school and had enjoyed such tiny classes (Landon's class had 11 for most of the year and then 13 by the end of the year) we couldn't stomach public school class sizes or the thought of sending them into a big school. So we signed up for k12 and had a great year. The program is free in Utah and is fabulous, so we decided to give it a try. Landon ended up testing out of 1st grade when he took the k12 placement test so I was already excited (only because how great is it that he didn't waste a year being bored at school?). So he and I did the 2nd grade curriculum together that year and I was amazed by how much could do, how thorough and cool the program was, and loved spending that time with him each day.


So we signed up again for the next year. I was still happy with everything having to do with the program, but ended up not being nearly as involved with Landon's work because he could do everything himself. It was pretty cool that he was so self-motivated to get his work done each day, but that meant that he was often done by the time Whitney was going to kindergarten at 9:00am (I knew she'd love kindergarten so I didn't want to try home school with her). So Landon's days turned out to be very long. He read a lot, played video games, and played with the neighbor kid (who was also doing k12) but he still had a lot of time on his hands. One day in the spring he said, "Mom, I think I'd like to go to school next year." That was fine with me so I signed him up the next day.

That's our story. I don't have strong opinions about home school, private school or public school. I plan on approaching each year for each child differently and will do whatever we think is best for them that year.

**Do you make a big deal of the first day of school?
What did your mom do for you on the first day of school?
Do you pluck your eyebrows in the car?
Have you ever home schooled?**