I’m Off The Hook

I failed to mention the fact that last night I arrived home from work only to find CootieBoy in front of the TV playing his new Diego Wii game all by himself. And I NEVER had to sit next to him to show him what to do. He did everything on his own.

Sweet relief!

At some point he did ask me to sit down next to him to keep him company, but he never actively needed my help, which was awesome. I was able to just sit and pepper him with questions about his day while he did his thing. Such a nice change of pace…

Kindergarten, that is.

Yes, that day has come when our CootieGirl starts her illustrious 16+ years in the educational system. This morning she woke up with a leap and promptly started getting dressed. Let’s hope that enthusiasm lasts more than a week. Let’s hope she has that enthusiasm in the 10th grade, too.

We made sure CootieBoy was up and dressed as well so he could go and see where she was going to school. We managed to get out of the house on time (gasp!) and drove to the school, which is a few miles away.

We got lucky and found parking up close (starting Monday Denis will be going through the “drop off” lane and simply letting her go in by herself). As we got near the doors we found Amy and Emma just across the way, so we all made the long walk together. I could see that Emma was VERY sad about going to school (her mom works from home so Emma has the benefit of staying at home most of the time rather than being in daycare all day like my kids). CootieGirl, on the other hand, was leading the way and rarin’ to go. In fact, when we got to her class she showed me where to put her backpack and with a nary a word went off to go play.

Uh, bye!

And it turns out that CG’s teacher has a daughter who is in CB’s class at daycare, so there is a connection there that is kind of cool.

(click to enlarge pictures)

And CB was just happy that they had donuts on hand for those that wanted them:

Today has been a very long day. Sure, I broke it up here and there, but for the most part it has been go go go since Mr. BIL had to be in court today AND had a lot of things he wanted to get done today as well. Fortunately, I did escape for an hour while he was at court and got some lunch and read my book for a while.

It gets a little frustrating when he gets his hands in 4-5 different tasks at once because then I have to juggle them all even as he bounces from one to the other. For instance, a second ago I was making copies for THREE different client tasks, and he came in and started talking about a fourth while I was still trying to collate all my copies from the three clients. I just looked at him (I gave him that “stern teacher” look over the top rim of my glasses (MB HATES that look)) and he eventually stopped talking and said, “Uh…you finish that. Catch up with me when you are done.”

Heh. That’s RIGHT!

But then the joke’s on me because now that I’m done, he’s on the phone and I have to wait ’til he’s done so I can know what I need to do next before I can go home.

Well, the night was a success. I got home from work and the minute I walked in the door CootieBoy cried, “MAMA! I HAVE PRESENTS!” and ran into the other room to get them. He couldn’t even make it back to where I was before he starting ripping and tearing in to the gifts. No finesse whatsoever.

He was thrilled with his loot. He got some DVDs from Marmie and Pop (Little Einsteins and VeggieTales), a Scooby Doo plug ‘n’ play video game and a Diego The Explorer Wii game. He also got one of those “bounce the ball on the wooden paddle” games (I have no idea what the real name is for those things). And last but not least, a couple small Star Wars figurines. It was the birthday of marketing genius since every gift was associated with a movie/tv character. *lol* (CLICK TO ENLARGE PICTURES)

Denis had picked up the cake when he got home from work, so all I had to do was grab the Lego Indiana Jones things I had put together a couple days ago and put them on the cake without CootieBoy knowing about it. I got lucky, and the cake was a hit!

Once cake had been eaten (or at least pushed around on the plate in lieu of eating because, hey, the Indiana Jones toys on the cake can be played with!) we plugged in the Diego game and let the boy play for a bit. Sadly, it’s not really a two-player game, which upset CootieGirl more than a little bit. Or at least, I couldn’t find a two-player section. Fortunately, the game really IS child-appropriate and I didn’t really have to help CB AT ALL. That’ll be a nice change of pace over the Lego Indiana Jones game where I’m kind of required to be nearby to help him sometimes.

All in all a big hit and the only hitch came at bedtime, when CootieBoy thought it meant the toys would all be returned. No idea where that came from, but he was really afraid that everything would be gone this morning. Once I assured him that no - these toys are his forever - he was okay about going to bed. *lol*

CootieGirl met her kindergarten teacher today. The school is very nice but BIG. I don’t remember my elementary school being that big (but then, that was a long time ago, wasn’t it?). I suppose what made it weird to me was that the school was all inside. The earliest school I remember was all OUTSIDE - meaning we’d walk out our classroom door directly onto the playground. We’d go directly outside to walk over to the library, the cafeteria, the principal’s office. Not that I ever went there. No seriously. My bullying was well-disguised and no one ever turned me in.

Anyhoo.

Her teacher seems very nice and definitely wants to challenge her class. In addition to reading and writing she hopes to teach them the fundamentals of math INCLUDING algebra. Yep, you read that right. ALGEBRA. When the teacher said this I stifled a laugh, because I failed algebra. And geometry. And chemistry. Twice. So there’s no way CG will be able to seek ME out for help on those subjects. And no, the teacher isn’t going to teach them actual algebra, so much as lay down the fundamentals on how algebra works so that their minds are already open to how it works by the time they start dealing with it.

The teacher’s assistant was very nice and took the kids around the school to show them the ropes. CG seemed very excited and not nervous at all - she was very proud that she got to be the line leader on the way to the cafeteria during her tour.

Another laugh was stifled when the teacher went over the dress code, some of which we follow already (shorts under dresses) and some of which we don’t (no spaghetti straps (of course, the dress she wore today was TOTALLY a spaghetti strap dress)).

After we were done with the meeting CG showed us the cafeteria, gym and music room. I spent a couple minutes talking with the music teacher who was very excited about having her own room and ONLY doing singing as opposed to singing AND instruments. They have another teacher for just the instruments this year.

So Wednesday is the day. We’ll go together on the first day and drop her off, and then I believe Denis will be taking her to school while I continue to take CootieBoy to daycare. I’m a bit worried about the whole kindergarten-aftercare dropoff once school ends, so we’ll see how that goes. By Monday I’m sure she’ll be fine. But that first day? I predict chaos as she tries to find where she needs to go to catch the right bus to go to daycare.