First Days of Kindergarten!

Pearce started Kindergarten at Westside Elementary on August 28, 2017.  I can't believe he is a Kindergartener!  We spent the week before school getting ready....Pearce got a new haircut and we also went to a couple of informational meetings.  He was really getting excited!  I, on the other hand, was not excited, although I did ACT excited for him.  I was going to miss our carefree days together and so sad that most of his days from now on would be spent with someone else.  I did really like his school and the principal, so thank goodness for that!  I also was thankful that I joined a neighborhood playgroup for upcoming Kindergarteners.  Pearce made several new friends through that and the hope was that these kids would see each other at school and ease some anxiety.  We had one last playdate the Saturday before school and the kids had so much fun together!  It ended up that it was just boys this time, and they LOVED playing superhero dress up!  It was so cute!  I've really enjoyed meeting the new moms, too.  I've spent the last 5 with my original play group and those moms have become some of my best friends, so I was a little worried about making new friends :)  The weekend before school started, we played, swam, and stayed up really late!  We had some surprise visitors come Sunday evening....Auntie Jen and Robert came to stay at our house to get away from the effects of Hurricane Harvey.  Pearce LOVED having them here for a few days!  It did make it a bit harder getting him to go to bed somewhat early, but on Monday, I had no trouble getting Pearce up because he was so excited for his first day.  He kept asking us if it was time to go yet :)  His school did classroom placement a little differently this year and I was very anxious to find out how it would all work out.  The whole Kindergarten group was grouped into 5 different color groups.  Pearce was assigned orange.  Every morning, he was supposed to sit with the orange group in the cafeteria and then the teachers would take each group to the Kindergarten wing.  Each group gets to rotate to two different teachers each day.  The kids participate in different learning stations while the teachers take notes on each students' social, emotional, and academic strengths/weaknesses.  The teachers then put all of this information together and form the classes.  I was really intrigued by this method since most schools just do an academic assessment and then form classes based on that information alone....they don't take into account personalities and other factors.  The idea behind this is to have a more balanced classroom with kids that work and get along well together.  I later found out that each group was the "classroom" and kids would get moved as the week went on.  Pearce was never moved.

Monday
So, the first day of school, Chris and I walked him to school and took lots of pictures.  We walked him to the cafeteria and found his color group.  There were coloring pages and crayons for the kids to color.  We stayed with him for a while and then gave hugs and kisses and left.  Pearce did not cry at all and even knew several kids at his group!  Walking away, I could have cried big time, but held it together.  I was just praying Pearce would have a fun day and make some friends.  We talked for a long time about Pearce being a leader and being the one to ask kids if they wanted to be friends or to play on the playground.  When I picked Pearce up, he was just beaming!  He said he had so much fun and made several friends and just talked non stop about school.  We celebrated by going to get yogurt with Auntie Jen and Robert.  

Wednesday
Monday and Tuesday went great with me dropping him off at school.  By Wednesday, he was done and did not want to go to school.  He said it was too long of a day, he misses me and he just wanted to stay with me.  he cried in the car and would not get out of the car.  I had to pull him out.  He kept crying as we walked up to the school.  When I took him to the cafeteria, he had stopped crying but did not want me to leave him.  I kept reassuring him and then told him I was going to give him a hug and kiss and then leave.  Well, he would not let me go.  I pried his hands off of me and just started walking towards the door.  He started crying and ran after me.  The teacher side of me said "Keep walking, don't look back. let the teacher deal with it."  The mommy side of me wanted to turn around, scoop him up, and love on him.  A teacher grabbed him and I walked out and immediately began crying.  It broke my heart to see him so upset.  Plus he kept yelling "One more hug, one more hug."  I had already given him tons of hugs and kisses, so I knew "one more" would not be one more and that I would just be prolonging the inevitable.  I kept walking and as soon as I got to my car, I just lost it and cried.  I was just praying he would settle down and end up having a fun day.  A couple hours later, the principal, Tracie Montanio (who we are friends with) sent me this pic...yay!!!  When I picked Pearce up that afternoon he was happy and told me he had a fun day.  He said "I got to go to the Principal's office, but not because I was in trouble.  It was because I needed to calm down.  Mrs. Montanio read me a funny story and then she took me back to my class."  I was so happy she took the time to calm him down and that he ended up having a fun day!

Thursday
Chris took Pearce to school and said he did great at drop off...of course he would be a big boy for Daddy!  When I picked him up that afternoon he reported another fun day but said "I did get tears in my eyes when Daddy left."

Friday
I assumed by Friday, Pearce would be just fine.  He was in great spirits that morning and we had decided to ride his scooter to school.  He was chatting away as we went to school and I had a great feeling about today.  Well, as soon as we rounded the corner and Pearce saw the flashing crosswalk lights, he stopped his scooter, got off, and started running back towards our house!  I had to grab him and pretty much drag a crying Pearce and a scooter the rest of the way to school.  He did cry when I left him, but he did not run after me.  Progress, I guess :)  When I picked him up, he said he had a great day and made several new friends!  It was finally a long weekend and I surprised him with movie tickets to go see Spiderman on Saturday.  He was soooo excited to finally get to see it!

Saturday
We were getting ready to go to the movie and then Pearce said he didn't want to go.  I couldn't believe it!  I finally convinced him to go, but he was dragging.  He had slept in, so I knew he wasn't tired.  I was actually kind of mad at him because he was acting ungrateful.  He did perk up when the movie finally started.  About 10 minutes into the movie, I looked over and he was sound asleep!  I could not wake him up.  We already ordered food, so I decided to just stay and at least one of us could enjoy the movie, but I knew then, he was probably getting sick.  When I got him home, I took his temp and he had a fever of 103!  Thank goodness it was a long weekend and he could just rest.  The whole weekend, he didn't want to eat and his fever went back and forth between 103 and 104.  I really thought it was his fever syndrome because he had not had a fever in a while and he always gets high fevers with that.

Sunday
Sissy was feeling left out and decided to rip her toenail off, so we had to take her to the emergency vet to get that fixed!  This has happened before and they usually just take the remaining nail off and then clean and bandage it and the nail grows back...sometimes they don't even charge us!  Well, for how this week was going, that would have been too easy.  It was more difficult to remove the rest of the nail and was starting to hurt her, so the vet needed to sedate her and cauterize some minor bleeding.  $250 dollars later, we took a drugged up and heavily bandaged sister home to rest.  Although Pearce still wasn't feeling good, he BEGGED to go with me for this and loved watching the vet!

Monday
Fever still wasn't down and he was now complaining about a sore throat, so I decided to take him to the pediatric Urgent Care.  While waiting, he just laid down on me and fell asleep.  They did a strep test which I knew would be negative because whenever he gets sick, they always test him for strep, but it's always negative.  Well, this time it was positive!  I felt so bad that I didn't take him the day before!  So, we got an antibiotic.

Tuesday
I was so bummed that Pearce was going to miss his first day back at school because this was his "Meet the Teacher" day where the kids and parents got to go to school early to meet the teacher and see their classroom.  Thankfully Chris was in town and was able to stay home with Pearce because it was also my first day teaching preschool!  I went to meet Pearce's teacher, which I was soooo happy with who he got!  She was very sympathetic and said she looked forward to seeing him the next day.  Well, when I got home from school, Pearce STILL had a high fever and now he had a really bad sounding cough.  I emailed his teacher and told her he would not be at school on Wednesday either.

Wednesday
Did not wake up with a fever, but he had low energy, no appetite, and still had a horrible cough.  I took him in to his regular pediatrician, Dr. Sperling, just to see if there was something else going on.  We left that appointment with her saying she thought he could be in the beginnings of walking pneumonia!  She prescribed him an additional antibiotic.  Just after one dose of that, he felt so much better!!  He happily went to bed extra early and I was just praying he woke up feeling good on Thursday....

Thursday 
Pearce woke up happy!  He was actually excited to go to school!  We had been talking about school and how nice (and pretty!) his teacher was.  I told him about all the friends he had in his class and how fun and colorful his room was....since he hadn't actually gotten to see it yet. I fixed him a really good breakfast...which he didn't eat :(  Thankfully, though, when I left him at school, he did not cry at all!  Now, all of the kids go to the gym for Rocket Radio which are announcement and songs before the kids are dismissed to go to their classes.  When I left him here, each class had activities they could do.  Pearce chose a whiteboard and marker, so I thought that was a really neat idea to keep the kids occupied and Pearce really liked it!  I gave him a big hug and kiss and walked off and thankfully, there was no crying or running after me!  When I picked him up that afternoon, he talked non stop about school and the friends he had made.

Pearce has completed 12 days of Kindergarten now.  We walk to school or ride his bike or scooter and he is always happy now.  I love how much he is able to tell me after school.  They get to do so many fun things, it seems like.  Pearce had two big assignments to complete and it was fun working on those together.  I was so sad about Pearce starting school and I still REALLY miss him during the day, but it makes me feel so much better knowing how excited he is about school now!