School daze

I realize I haven't talked much about Luke being in school aside from the first few days. Bottom line is, I'm not really sure what to make of it. Except for the agonizing drop-off, all seems to be well. He seems happy and he comes home buzzing about everything he's been doing. He hasn't even gotten sick more than that one time with the pinkeye. But I have to admit I woke up in a panic the other night, imagining myself as Luke at school, feeling scared and not knowing where to turn for help.

Today I had the unfortunate duty of doing my first-ever drop-off, while carrying out the morning on my own - note to Joe - how do you get two kids out the door by 7:30? I couldn't even get Luke awake until 7:55 and it took me a good hour to get us both out the door, even without TV, books, or dawdling. Funny thing is, once I said, "Let's go to school!" he said, "Yeah - Let's go!" and ran to the door. I guess I just didn't say the magic words soon enough. But the drop-off was painful, involving lots of screaming and clinging, coupled with my own uncertainty and frustration (where am I supposed to put the lunch bag? why did some guy double-park and block me in?).

Good things about school: Miss Beverly. Miss Melissa. Miss Rubio. KJ the director. Lots of activities and distractions. Lots of cool toys outside. Drums. Miss Beverly's autoharp. Not going into debt every month because of the nanny. No nanny.

Bad things about school: The dropoff. Not really knowing for sure what he did during the day. Not really being sure that when Luke says something the teachers will understand him. Not really knowing what diseases the other sniffling and hacking kids might be carrying. Wondering during the day if he is scared or crying and not having someone to comfort him.

Happily, when I went to pick him up on Tuesday I walked in on him laughing hysterically at one of the teachers. And when Dave picked him up on Thursday he was engrossed in reading a book one-on-one with the teachers. Dave loves Miss Melissa because she has no hesitation about telling us how smart he is. I think might only be a matter of time before he's king of the hill there.