A Momentous Day

Yesterday was Mary's first day at her new school. First off, the bus was about 10 minutes early. John was just calling me asking me where her jacket was, when he noticed the bus outside the garage door (yikes!). The driver said the schedules were a bit off and that he'd be there that early every day.

For the return trip, we have Mary going to a day care provider around the corner from our house. Unfortunately, the bus won't drop off right in front of the house, so Mary has quite a little jaunt from her stop to the house. The provider sends one of her older kids down the street to pick up the little kids, but since it was the first day, and we're the over-protective type of parents, John decided to take off work early and meet the bus, too. Well, John got there in plenty of time, the bus stopped, no Mary came off...and then it started rolling again. John, "Uh, excuse me!?" and stops the bus. Then Mary apparently saw John and headed to the front of the bus. Mary of course didn't recognize her stop and claims she didn't hear the driver call her name. Anyway, she made it off and got the thrill of being picked up early by Daddy.

It's hard to get out of a 6 year old what goes on when you're not around. You can ask all kinds of open-ended questions, but you're never 100% sure if what she's telling you is what really happened. The only things we could get out of her about her first day was that she "had a blast", she went to the library, and she couldn't play on the playground equipment because she didn't have sneakers on (uh, why didn't anyone tell THE PARENTS about that little rule?). I'm not sure what else happened during the day, but at least she seems to like it so far and was very eager to go back this morning.

Keith started his "preschool" yesterday. His day care provider covers preschool basics with the kids, but took most of the summer "off" from teaching since they were basically outside all day every day. Well, the little kids were jealous about their older siblings starting school yesterday, so she picked yesterday for them to have their "own school" and start their lessons again. She gave them all an alphabet puzzle. My goodness, you'd think the thing was gilded in 24 karat gold with the way Keith handles it. Since Keith is now the oldest, he's the most advanced. Leona quickly learned that he just needs to work more on his handwriting, 'cause he's got the alphabet down pat.

Izzy had a pretty busy day, too. After day care, we all went to Pizza Hut and Target. We didn't get home until after 8:00. I started to put her into a clean diaper and her pajamas, when I noticed that her pull-up was dry. Hmmm.... "Hey, Iz, you wanna sit on the potty?" I sat her down then went to go get her a book to look at while she was sitting there. By the time I got back, she'd already peed in the potty! Wow! This kind of caught me off guard--I really thought she wasn't quite ready yet and hadn't been pushing her yet. I hadn't even bought her any rewards--stickers--yet. So Mary gave Izzy one of her stickers, and we all cheered her on.

This morning Izzy woke John and me up at 4:00 and would NOT go back to sleep. Not in her bed, not with us, no where, no how. I finally got up just before 6:00 and got in the shower (John had already given up, too and had gone downstairs to sleep on the couch). When I got out, Izzy started fussing again. Since it was basically time for her to get up anyway, I picked her up and took her into the bathroom. Sure enough, she was still dry from the night before! So, I put her on the potty and even through the tired tears she was still crying, she peed in the potty again! Wow. It's too soon to tell, but there is the glimmer of a hope that she will be one of those kids who practically train themselves. I haven't had one of those kids yet, so I doubt it'll be that easy, but one can hope.....