School starts and so it begins...

Tomorrow is Anthony's first day of kindergarten. Wow, re-reading that makes me feel so many things; proud, scared, old, nervous, excited. It hasn't been the best labor day and I mostly blame myself and Joe for that. While most parents would have spent half a minute planning at least something to do, we chose to make it a slow day, one where the kids inevitably get to a breaking point of boredom and begin showing signs of cabin fever mixed with ADHD, mixed with a little spite just for fun. They begin hurting eachother, throwing toys, throwing fits and best of all, pretending that Joe and I aren't here and anything we say goes into some sort of toddler vaccuum. So, at about 2:30 pm we finally decided maybe we should take them somewhere, anywhere! As soon as we were in the car we knew it was a bad idea. Anthony was already crying for whatever reason, the baby was crying for another reason, and Dom, well, Dom was ok, at least at this point.

We went bowling, and everyone seemed excited when we arrived. There was hope for the day after all! Well, that soon ended when Anthony learned that in order to rent shoes you had to leave one of yours as collateral. Being tired mixed with being a little nervous about tomorrow and we had one grade A fit on our hands. He sat in time out his first three frames. Then it was Dom's turn to sit in time out for climbing on the ball return and not listening. Oh, and all the while Nicolas is screaming in the stroller but there was NO WAY we were letting him out only to chase him down the alley and who knows where else. So, we bowled one game, I broke a hundred, we left the bowling alley with no one crying. That soon ended as well. Again, you mix tired, nervous, and bored and you have one volatile mixture on your hands. It isn't a coctail you want very often, that is for sure.

So, now we are home, the baby is sleeping, the boys are playing with legos and being fairly good for a change, and I just managed to beat another song on Expert in Guitar Hero.

Back to school starting. Joe was planning on taking Anthony out for dinner tonight, and little man to man before starting school tomorrow. I am not sure if that is still happening as Joe is holed up in his office playing Medal of Honor to blow off some steam. I don't blame him. Now don't get me wrong, we love our kids, we really do, but days like this help put things in perspective. I hope they help Joe at least understand what I go through day to day, especially in the summer. I suppose I could try to be one of those mothers who has something planned for every day, activities to do at home or out and about, but let's be honest, I am not one of those mothers. I am lucky to get them all dressed on any given day rather than staying in their jammies. So, tomorrow is the first day of school and while I hate to admit that my child is anything but uber excited about starting this milestone, I must force myself to acknowledge that he may be a little, just a little, nervous and stressed about the upcoming change. It will sort itself out and it may be a rough couple weeks as we all adjust to the new schedule, but eventually it will become routine.

Now let's chat about MY nervousness. And Joe's as well. I mean, this is it, we are sending him off into the world for 5 hours WITHOUT US! Without our watchful eyes and ears to make sure he is being kind, to make sure others are being kind to him. He will hear things we don't want him to hear, he will learn things we don't want him to know. This scares us to death! This world is not what it used to be. But at the same time I have to have faith in our parenting abilities and trust that we have and will continue to prepare him for whatever he encounters. I don't want to shelter him from everything, I want him to be confident in his ability to face the world head on and be the person we have raised him to be without thinking twice. I realize kindergarten isn't going to be the toughest grade for him by far, and if his academic career in any way mirrors my own, he will have his fair share of being ostracized and ridiculed, but as Joe so wonderfully put it, it is all about confidence. If you seem confident, people notice, which makes you more confident, which makes more people notice. So, confidence in the key. As well as whole lot of prayer and stress on our part. But again, I think that is part of parenting. You teach them things, send them off, and then worry your brains out the rest of the time!

I will post more tomorrow, after the big day.