Litter Boxes Can't Be Late For School: Will's first day!

Ready for his first day of school!

Will has started playschool!  He'll be going two mornings a week for three hours.  It's a little playschool close to our house where he'll get a chance to interact with other two year olds in a structured environment that includes story time, music, arts and crafts, snack-time, and free play.  Two teachers, ten toddlers, and a chance for him to make some friends in the neighborhood while I get a little extra time with Andrew or maybe take a yoga class!  I couldn't be more excited for us both :)

I did a few things to help Will prepare for the transition into playschool.

We went for a walk the week before and looked at school from the outside and talked about it.  (My mom was visiting so I got to show her which was fun!)

I printed out pictures of the playschool and his teacher from the school's website, so we could look at them together and talk about going to school and meeting new friends.  At my mom's suggestion, I taped them up at toddler height in our kitchen where he could see them.  At least once a day the week before school started I would talk to him about how he was going to go to school, meet new friends, play with the train, and have fun with Miss Hillary until Mom came back to pick him up.  By the time school started, he could point to the picture of his teacher and say her name!  My hope was that then when he arrived at the school for orientation, it would all look familiar because he had seen the pictures and we had talked about the fun he would have there without Mommy.

Photos of school

We also picked out a book about school to incorporate into Will's bedtime routine.  (Greg read it to him three times the night before Will's orientation!)  After perusing the display of books about school at my local bookstore, I chose "Spot Goes to School" by Eric Hill.  A lot of the books I found seemed too long or geared towards kindergarten, and this one was a perfect picture and concept book geared more towards a younger child's school experience.

Will's new bedtime story

Will's first day of school was a 45 minute orientation with only a few of the students.  Just long enough for him to meet the teachers and learn that although Mom is going to leave, she will be back, and soon.  It went fabulously.  The second we got there, he asked about the train set that he'd seen in the pictures, and was too busy playing with it to say goodbye to me when I left!  He knew I was leaving, but it was of secondary importance.  (Ouch, and yet awesome.)  Forty five minutes later, I came back to find him happily engaged with the other kids.

See you, Mom!  Sorry, I can't look up for a photo, I've got trains!

Whew.  Will did great.  Mr. Monkey didn't even need to come out of his school bag!  Now you might ask... first born son, first day of school, how did I do?

My morning was insanely, absurdly perfect.  Let me explain.

Nothing this morning went smoothly.  My phone rang at 6:30 a.m., waking me up with the news that my regular sitter had a stomach bug and couldn't watch Andrew this morning.  So either Andrew had to skip his regular morning nap to drop and pick up Will from orientation, or I had to find another sitter.  Normally, that might not be such a big deal, but we have a company picnic tonight and I want the kids rested so they have fun!  Frantic phone calls - lined up another sitter last minute, YES!  Realized our cleaning person comes today and the house is a wreck, and the last minute sitter can't come early enough to watch the kids so I can pick up, have to do it while keeping them entertained.  Getting Will's first day of school outfit picked out - oh no, he needs to wear disposable diapers for playschool and that means the only shorts that are clean won't stay up because they don't have a drawstring and there's no bulky cloth diaper underneath.  Find spare shorts in car.  Change first day outfit t-shirt because it clashes.  Ack, I can HEAR Andrew pooping from across the kitchen while I'm trying to find Mr. Monkey for Will's schoolbag.  Have I made coffee yet?  No.  Breakfast?  Will and Andrew, yes.  Me, no.  The litter box needs to be scooped.  No, Kelly, not now.  Litter boxes can't be late to school.

Focus.  Andrew needs to go down for his nap and I have to find myself a new shirt because he wiped snot all over my shoulder and you know it'll dry shiny and I'll look disgusting when I meet the other Moms.  Oh and I wanted to wear makeup.  I need to leave in twenty minutes.  Ok just concealer.  Maybe I could wear sunglasses instead.  No, I have to go inside.  Concealer.  And a clean t-shirt.  Ok, Andrew, naptime.  New diaper.  Wait, did you just pee?  Everywhere?  Yes, you're adorable.  That's really funny.  Wish I had time to take a picture.

My phone's vibrating in the other room.  Oh, the last minute sitter hit traffic.  She's going to be late.  I need to leave in ten minutes.  Ok, Andrew, you're dressed, let's do this, naptime!  SPLAT.  What's that noise?  Was that vomit hitting the floor?  Did you just spit up all over me and the stairs?  Yes, yes you did.  Ok, great.  New shirt.  Clean up stairs.  Playschool starts in twenty minutes.  The sitter still isn't here.  Will still isn't dressed.  I want to take a picture of him on the steps before we go.  I can do this.  Have I had coffee?  Some, finally.  Breakfast? No.  But Will's dressed!

I managed to get Andrew asleep and Will ready before the sitter showed up, snapped a frantic few photos on the porch, and was at playschool with literally two minutes to spare.

I decided not to linger!

By the time I was dropping him off, I was so hungry that I had ZERO problem giving him a quick kiss and a wave, and leaving him engrossed in the train table so I could run and grab a breakfast sandwich before I needed to pick him up forty five minutes later.

And that's when I realized what a gift it was to have an insane morning, because when your house is on fire, you're not worried about emptying the dishwasher.  It was all I could do to get it together enough to get Will to school on time, and so while I was stressed out, the stress wasn't about leaving him.  I knew I had prepared him the best I could, he wasn't at all upset that I was leaving, and that breakfast sandwich sounded pretty darn good.  By the time I was done with the sandwich and had a moment to spare for maternal anxiety, I was halfway up the steps to retrieve Will from school.

Thank you, chaos.  That was insanely, absurdly perfect.

Will has time to stop for a quick photo and to smell the flowers before we head in to playschool to meet his teacher and new friends!  Whew.