Back to School is not for the "FAINT" of Heart

It is true, Ethan and Caden are both back to school!  With a brand new town and a new school, the transition seemed a little more nerve-wracking than normal.  A few days before school started I took the boys to meet their teachers and drop off their school supplies.  I was worried most about Caden, he is shy, and starting new things is hard for him.  He did pretty great though, he got to practice riding a school bus with his new classmates, found his seat and cubby, and felt pretty excited about it all.  I wasn't nervous about Ethan at all because he is never shy and likes to meet new people.  When we went to his classroom his new teacher came up to introduce herself and Ethan started acting really funny.  He wasn't really responding and looked really pale.  All of a sudden he said, "I'm going to throw up."  So I started rushing him out the door to the bathroom, when he got to the door of his classroom I could tell he was going down...so I grabbed him just in time to lower him to the ground as he passed out!!!  Here the poor kid had fainted right in front of his classroom while several parents, teachers, and other students just kept stepping around him like it was no big deal.  I'm pretty sure his teacher thought she was in trouble with a real basket case on her hands.  He wasn't out for very long, but when he came to he felt nauseated so we got him into the bathroom.  About 5 minutes later he was back to normal.  Nerves?  Staying up to late the night before?  Hungry?  I don't know what caused it, but that was quite unexpected.

The night before school started we had a back to school dinner, complete with parfaits!  We played pin the worm on the apple, and had a talk about our theme for the year:

I thought this little lion family was a good motto for us all, facing so many new things this year!

Poor dairy free parfait!  He still loved it, when I handed him his he shouted in excitement, "I get the little one!"

Clark gave the boys Father's blessings and all the boys slept quite peacefully that night.  Can't say the same about the mom in the family.

 The first day went great!  My heart dropped when Caden discovered his teacher hadn't included his name on the big rocket poster across the hall where all of the students names were listed, but he took it in stride.  Those first few steps across the threshold of his classroom were hard, but once he crossed it he marched over to his seat and was ready to go.  It took a lot for me to hold it together, but Caden did great.  Even with a few first day jitters both boys came bounding out of school with big smiles!  Caden has all day kindergarten, when I asked him if the day seemed long he said, "I wish it was 2 hours longer."

After an experience I had last week I was panicking a little about how fast kids grow up these days.  I feel like even young kids are exposed to so many things they are acting older sooner than they did when I was a kid.  It did my mother heart good when Ethan skipped out of his first day of school, and then when I saw him later than night snuggling with Brown Dog.  I know I can't protect him from the world forever, but it sure would be nice to have a least a few more years!

So happy I have this little guy at home with me still!  He came up with the glasses on and said, "I'm Mr. Potato Head Grammy."  He's a delight.