The First Days of School

It's really amazing how less than one week of school and already my boys seem to have grown up so much! First grade and Kindergarten....how can that make such an impact in just a matter of a few days? However, in this short amount of time they seemed to have just "grown up".

Jonah is reading things all of the time, everywhere - signs and papers. And this morning I asked him to write "cheese" on our shopping list. He is quite responsible and very naturally falls into the "big brother" role now that Riley is at school. I was so happy when I pulled up the other day to pick them both up and they were playing together....by choice. Of course they were digging in the dirt but that is completely besides the point.

And Riley....I think he's grown two inches taller in the past week. He already is "getting" school - where to go, when to go, etc. By the second day he told Jason that he didn't have to walk him down to class from the cafeteria. He knew where it was and could go alone. And he is up pretty much first every morning and ready quickly and that has never happened.

As we drove home yesterday afternoon the boys were falling over each other to talk about their day. I learned this, we did this, I made that, we read this, we counted, we played, etc. I hope this enthusiasm continues. Of course the best parts of the day still revolve around recess, lunch and snack time. Jonah thinks that is funny that his teacher posts what they did each day on a webpage. But it makes for more detailed conversations we have about what he is learning and the activities they are doing.

We enjoy packing lunches together in the morning - choosing snacks and drinks, talking about the upcoming day. Thankfully the boys' schedules are similar this year - PE, Library, and Music are all on the same days just different times. This will be a great source of help to mom and dad to make sure tennis shoes are worn on PE days and books are returned to the Library on Wednesday.

We need all of the help we can get.