A New Rhythm

I’ve been told when keeping a family record, that the easiest place to start is present day and work your way backward. It seems less daunting that way. I feel that I have a summer’s worth of documenting to do, and so the only thing that is making me sit down and start writing is to start at the here and now.

September quite often feels like it’s the beginning of the year. Maybe the Jews have the whole New Year thing right. The onset of fall and the beginning of school offers me a fresh start at routines and goal-setting. Finding a new daily rhythm, if you will. And this past week was certainly a fresh start. We’ve had two weeks in between our trip out West and school starting…and boy did they drag. I lost the motivation to plan fun outings, well, because I couldn’t think of any more to do. The girls were sick of each other. I was beyond antsy to be done with my single-mother status (Brian returned PERMANENTLY from Idaho on August 20, which deserves a post of it’s own.) It was hot.

I was a mother truly done with summer.

I love my Ella to pieces, but it was time to get that girl into school. Any anxiety or trepidation I might have felt about sending my first-born to Kindergarten was tempered by how much I wanted summer to be over. Sure, Brian and I had a moment together, of “can’t believe we have a Kindergartener”, but we were done with that in about 1 minute. We tried to make her send-off as special as possible. Sunday dinner was her choice, Monday breakfast hers as well. A new outfit. A new backpack. And as we walked out the door Monday morning, so did her two little friends on either side of us, also starting Kindergarten.

They’re not in the same class together, but it has been sweet to see them beg to walk to and from school together, figuring out how they can see each other at lunch, and playing on the playground together after school because they missed each other.

Dad came along for days 1 and 2. Day 1 we were allowed to accompany her into the school to her classroom. Day 2 we had to say our good-byes at the front door of the school and let her navigate her way to her room.

Lined up outside her classroom on Day 1.

Week 1 has brought smiles all around. Ella smiling for making new friends, liking her teacher and feeling grown up to find her classroom by herself. Samantha smiling for free reign of Ella’s room during the day and more 1-on-1 time with me. Mom smiling for nice walks to and from school every day, a quiet house while Sam is napping, having Ella occupied for 6+ hours a day and the enjoyment of watching Ella become more independent. And Dad smiling…because the rest of us are smiling.