*Photo of her third day, a tradition with all our kids (me and my Sisters) we all take photos on day three.
We have had the busiest week in a very long time. Not only are we experiencing so many firsts both with J and his new Sister but we are experiencing the emotional highs and lows of having had Opa here for two whole weeks and then all of a sudden he is gone home. Well, I guess it wasn’t all of a sudden, we knew he would be leaving on Friday, but it doesn’t ever sink in until he leaves.
Baby Girl is absolutely wonderful. I though J was a great baby, but I am amazed at how much better Baby Girl is. Her sleep patterns are pretty good, I have only really had one bad night so far. And she is sleeping in the bassinet, something J never did. She dozes on and off all morning, spends the afternoons awake and goes back to sleep for the night. Pretty great, I think. Car rides have been very easy. Her first shopping trip was to the shoe store for J’s running shoes, but she has now been to the grocery store, Starbucks, and Indigo. She has had a playdate at my Sister’s and today walked J to school. Not bad for a first week.
J continues to be wonderful with her. We had a few bad moments but that was mostly due to Opa leaving and him thinking that Mommy could play hockey the minute after the Baby arriving. I had to explain that, although I am doing really great I can’t do sports yet (my legs just don’t have all of their stregnth back yet). J insists on holding her at least once every day and one day when he forgot he was in tears at bedtime because he didn’t get to hold her that day. I try to make sure he gets his chance at some point when she is wide awake.
And today was the first official day of school for J. He has a staggered entry so he went today, then not again until Monday, when he will go every single day for the rest of his childhood, minus the summers of course. I was doing great. Until… the teacher led him to the playstructure and he stopped, looked back and said, “I will wait right here.” about fifty times. I knew right then that he was scared. He has never liked the idea of being locked out. If I am on one side of a baby gate and he is on the other, he will freak out. So I knew he wasn’t doing to well, I could see his lip starting to tremble and that was it, the tears started rolling down my cheeks. So, I had to call out to him that it was OK, he could wait wherever he wanted. So he came back to the fence and talked to me until they went in. Where again, I could see the fear on his little face that and turned and called out, “Wait right there Mommy.”. I cried all the way home.
As I was getting ready to leave and pick him up, Hubby called. I thought I had lots of time, apparently I was wrong. I was almost at the schoolyard when the other parents were walking back with their kids, so I picked up the pace as did my Mom who came with me. Well, there he was waiting by the wall for me. In all the times he was in Duffer Doo, not once did he have to wait for me. I was always the first or second Mom to be there. Now, his teacher probobly thinks I am always going to be late, and it broke my heart that I wasn’t there when he came out. He won’t talk about his first day, he won’t tell us what he did, only that he had to leave his indoor shoes in the classroom. I hope I didn’t traumatize him and for sure, I won’t be late again. Ever.
