The McDonald Family Adventures: First Day Of School

Well the day finally came that the kids started school. When we arrived in Poland and I knew the kids were going to be with me every single minute of the summer and back then that seemed like it was going to be SUCH a long time - but I can't believe how fast it flew by. Their first day was on that Monday September 3. The night before they were both really excited but once the morning rolled around they were a little nervous. The school is pretty far from our house, at least 20 minutes without traffic, so we signed them up for the taxi service to shuttle them to/from school. They would be in the taxi with 6 other kids from nearby and would most likely have the same driver each morning. At first I was really nervous about the thought of them being shuttled around, but I guess if we were in the U.S. they might be taking a bus to school anyway. The good thing is that I can at least put their car seats into the taxi (are there even seat belts in school buses these days??). Neither of them wanted to take the taxi and I have to admit I was a bit nervous about the first day as well, so I drove them in. I was planning on dropping Ava off first (they are in different buildings) because I figured Jack would be really clingy and not want me to leave and I didn't want Ava to be late, but the security in the parking lot made me park near his building and so I just went in there first. He looked around nervously a little but when I pointed out the play doh table that he had seen at the Open House (and that we wouldn't let him stay and play with) he made a beeline for it and didn't even say goodbye to me. Finally he at least gave me a hug and a thumbs up and off he went. I was in shock! Next we walked into the main building where it was slightly chaotic. There is a small locker room for the younger kids instead of having lockers line the hallway, so Ava went inside and dropped off her bag and we walked into her class. She already knew two kids in her class, Ellie was already there but seemed to be busy with her old friends (she was in the school last year), and Danny from Boston (who is also new) wasn't there yet so she was nervously looking around for him. They didn't have assigned seats so she chose a seat near the girls and the teacher explained that there was a game they had to play while they waited for the day to start, sort of an ice-breaker I guess where they had to walk around and find out different information about people in the class according to the worksheet left on their desks. I really thought she was going to struggle with this, or at least complain to me and act scared and ask me to stay and help her, but she picked up the paper and pencil and quietly started walking around the room. I said my goodbyes to her and then off she went. Wow that was easy!! I think they were just so bored with being at home all day with me (well it's not like we spent all day every day locked inside our house)-so they could not wait to start school. I got in my car and had to fight back the tears. I just felt like they were my two babies, all alone in that big school and I wanted to be there inside with them. I have to admit I was mostly nervous about Jack and really feeling like no one other than me could keep a really close eye on him - there seemed to be too many doors for him to sneak out of or something.

To take my mind off of this, and because this is all I ever do any day of my life, I headed to the grocery store. When I got inside it hit me again and I had to fight the urge to cry. I just had a big, heartbroken pain in my chest from being at the grocery store without the kids. This was our thing to do all summer! We had fun most of the time, I was amazed by how well-behaved they were (almost) every time we went shopping. I roamed around the store in a daze at first but then finally realized I needed to get my shit together and stop moping around because I had a big list in front of me. When I was finished ( I did it in under an hour - yay! But of course I couldn't find tofu - boo!) I walked out to the car and got that stab in my heart again - whenever we went shopping Ava always wrote down the number and color of our parking spot so we wouldn't forget where we parked. Okay I admit this wasn't a big parking garage and I always park in the same place there so I knew where I was going, but it still reminded me of her and I got sad again. How was I going to get through this day being at home all alone without my two best buddies?? Ugh I was so depressed. But of course the perfect cure for depression is to just get really pissed off, angry and annoyed about something else, so that's what I did. Because I had a certain recipe from The Program that called for tofu, I left Tesco and went on a day long search for the frigging tofu. Because how else would I rather spend my new found freedom than by wandering aimlessly around three giant grocery stores looking for stupid tofu??? I ended up finding it eventually (and the recipe ended up sucking to add even more insult to injury) but by the time I got home, made lunch, took a shower and maybe paid a bill or two I had to go back to pick up the kids. Well that was a fun day - NOT! I had to leave the house at around 3:00 to pick them up (since then I've hit really bad traffic, so if I were doing it every day I would have to leave at 2:45). So after a day or two of driving them I decided, it's much easier for them to take the taxi. It picks them up at 7:40 am, and doesn't drop them home until almost 4:30pm. How can I pass that up - the alternative is me scrambling around trying to get us all out of the door by 7:45 am, then ~~napping/eating bon bons/surfing the net~~ having a super-productive day cooking/cleaning/ironing our underwear/paying bills/organizing the closets until 4:30. I'll see how it goes, if the kids are really unhappy I may have to drive more but I will take advantage of it while I can! Here are some pictures:

Jack heading into his building with his super-sized back-pack, filled with a change of clothes, a snack, and a pillow and blanket for nap time