This week I am feeling the tightness in my chest that always accompanies back to school. It's worse this year because we're in a different place and I have two...TWO...kids going to school. We registered the kids yesterday. The school is close, and we met the principle and she seems awesome. The secretary in the office told the kids that she's new too, and that they would have to learn things together...super sweet. And then she let my kids push the buttons on the photocopier for her copies while Tyler and I filled out all the forms. ok, that was reassuring.
Lucy starts on Tuesday...ALL DAY! And Max starts Wednesday. He goes for an hour on his first day and I get to go with him to get oriented...orientated? one of those. He's really excited that I get to go with him...and I am too. Tyler said, "I could go with Max." and I was like, "Uh, no way!"
When my kids are bigger, will sending them off to school be easier? I hope so. It just feels like too much. Early mornings and schedules and strange people and buses. What about playing, and just being?
I asked Max the other day while he was trying on his new backpack if he actually had to go to school.
Me: "Why don't you just stay home and be my buddy? You don't need to go to school."
Max: "Yes I do! Mom, I have to learn everything!"
Me: "We can just play, you don't need to learn."
Max: "But I need to learn everything so when I have kids I can teach THEM!"
(nice to know he thinks we know everything...I wonder how long that will last?)
Me: "You're going to have kids?"
Max: "Well, the girl I marry, when I marry her, she'll have kids, and I'll be their dad."
So it looks like he has to go to school because he's got a life plan.
Both of the kids have told me that they think it's probably a smart idea for me to drive them to school on their first day, because they don't want to leave me crying in the street while the bus drives away. Very thoughtful. I'll just cry in the parking lot of their school I guess. I'm appreciating that Lucy starts one day, Max is the next only for an hour. They don't both go to school ALL day until Friday...so at least I can work my way up to it.
Anyway, because school starts this week, I've been trying to cram in some last summer fun this week. I went Visiting Teaching the last two days which took up a lot of our play time, so today was the day. We decided to hit up a park in the city that we haven't been to yet. City Park Splash Park. Seriously, it was awesome. They have a huge splash pad, two play-grounds, lots of green space and a sand pit all in the same place. And it's a block from Tyler's office. AND free parking! Seriously, it was all awesome.
The kids spent a few minutes on the playground but then headed to the splash park for the majority of their time.
We had a picnic lunch surrounded by seagulls (stressful for Lucy!)
Then we hit up the sand-pit, climbed the cool side-ways tree and played on the park some more.
The cutest part was when we first arrived, I heard Max and another kid talking and Max said, "I'm Max. I'm from Alberta." They hung around together the rest of the time. Tyler tells me that he had a conversation with Max this morning about being brave at school. He told him that ALL the kid's in JK will be nervous and won't know anybody because it's their first time going to school. So he should just go up to someone and say, "Hi, I'm Max, wanna play?" Then he told him to practice...I guess he did. Brave boy!
Dad was supposed to be in meetings the whole time we were there, so we didn't expect to see him, but he surprised us for 2 minutes as he walked to lunch with a co-worker. It was perfect!
I'm disappointed that we didn't go here sooner. It was so fun. I guess the boys and I will have to check it out when Lucy's at school. Bummer.
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