Getting into a Routine

The first week of school is behind us and we are all getting into our routine.  The alarm going off at 6:00 a.m. is really early and I wish I could get more than one snooze, but I have to drag myself out of bed and get the day started.  I think Trent was in shock the second day of school when I woke him up at 6:45 a.m. He could barely get his eyes in focus and he told he was soooo tired.  
This week has been better and yesterday morning he woke up before I did and wanted to play his DS in bed.  I told him it was too early for him to get up and to get back to bed.  I finally got up, tucked him back into bed and told him to sleep a bit longer.  I don't think he did because about 20 minutes later I heard  little footsteps run to the sun room to get the DS and go back to bed.  I found him playing his DS and told him he could play for a few minutes, but it was almost time to get up and have breakfast.  He said ok and was happy to get just a few minutes of playing his DS in bed.  It's the little things that make him so happy. Tim even got to snuggle a bit with him before heading off to work.

With last week behind us, I began dreading Monday because I knew I would have to say my good-byes to Trent at the entrance gate of his school.  We had been told a few times last week that the kids would be just fine being dropped off at the gate.  We didn't have to hang around to wait for the bell to ring and walk our kids to the class line.  The message from the principal was that parents needed to take a small (big for me) step back and let the kids feel the excitement of school and independence of being dropped off at the gate.  At the New Parent Orientation the principal made a joke that she had been doing this for a long time and hasn't lost any students and ours wouldn't be the first. Obviously, I got what she was saying and knew she was right, but seriously dropping Trent off at the gate was giving me an anxiety attack.  I needed to know that he would make it safely to his class line when the bell rang and then Mrs. C would take them to class.  

The dreaded Monday came and I put on my big smile for Trent's sake.  I am not yet to the point of driving through the car drop off line (maybe when he's in 5th grade).  I had to park and walk Trent to the gate.  We had gone over where he would put his back pack when he played and that when the bell rang he would get his back pack and go the class line up.  Trent was all smiles, but I could tell a bit nervous that I wasn't going inside the gate, but he was going to be just fine (I kept telling myself that).  He was fine and again all smiles when I picked him at 2:45.  He was excited to tell me that he had chocolate milk with his lunch. Again, it's the little things.