School: Alex's 1st Day!

Well, it's finally here. The day upon which so many parents across the country breathe an enormous sigh of relief as they watch their lovely, adorable, patient, respectful, quiet, well-behaved treasures leave the house, hop on the school bus, and become someone else's concern for a few short but priceless hours. Don't get me wrong, I love time with all of my children; I just don't love all the time with all of my children. For the last few weeks of summer I've been trapped indoors with my three expert chaos theorists because, let's face it, if I have to face one more hour sneaking up on each of my children, smearing gobs of sunscreen across them, chasing them to finish gooping up their legs, arms, and faces as they desperately struggle to avoid the process that has occurred practically every day for the last three months just so we can go out and swing for 15 minutes before getting bored with that and asking to go back inside for a snack, I'm going to go out of my mind.

Many of you know that Alex is a fairly agreeable child. However, some of you are also aware that Alex doesn't always take a shine to change. He may talk excitedly about going to get his haircut right up until the moment it's his turn at the haircutter's, and then fight tooth and nail against getting up in the chair. With this in mind I worked fervently to get Alex as excited as possible about getting on the bus. We repeated again and again the process of getting on the bus, finding a seat on the left so he could look out the window and wave to me, then looking for any kids who were nervous so he could have the important job of "distracting them" by telling them about dinosaurs and sea creatures (Alex's favorite subjects). Now, I've tried this method of preparation many times before to no avail, so my hopes for this morning were restrained at best.

So, how bad was it you may wonder? Well, let me show you.

CLICK HERE

Now, after we shot this video it was time to head out to wait for the bus. Alex was standing excitedly at the end of the driveway and I was waiting with camera ready. My thought was to take a couple of pictures of Alex with the bus behind him, then put the camera down while I extracted Alex from my leg and convinced him to follow through on the plan and actually climb on the bus. Here are some pictures of the big event...


That's it. That's all I have. Before I could snap another picture he was gone. Instead of having to extract Alex from my leg, I watched him run up the bus stairs, hop in his seat, and wave goodbye. I shrugged to the bus driver, waved back, and away he went! I have to say I am awful proud.



Stay tuned for part two of this very exciting September, "School: Conner's 1st Day!" (He starts next Tuesday and I am soo excited...I mean I'm really going to miss him. Really. Seriously. Inside I'm crying.)