'Twas the Night Before Kindergarten

One more hour is what I've got before my first toddler becomes an elementary-school student. Five years ago, we were trying to figure out how to keep our little girl on a sleep/eat/poop schedule, and now we're trying to figure out how to drop her off and pick her up at kindergarten.

The Girl isn't too psyched about it - she freaked out a bit last night about the whole thing. We've been talking to her about it for quite some time, but she asked as she was going to bed last night when she was going to kindergarten:

"Tomorrow?"

"Not tomorrow, the next day."

(Pauses, starts the crying face) "Nooooooooooo! I don't want to."

* * *

At least we have some time in the morning, since she doesn't start until 10:20 am. I am disappointed in half-day kindergarten, especially since we have to have the later class. It's good that we have some extra time for me to get her into going, but it may backfire to where she'll just want to stay home more.

The other problem with the later class is she gets out at 1:40 pm, too early for me to get her on Tuesdays & Thursdays when I'm home with Colin, so we'll be paying for 5 days of before- & after-school care. With the early kinder, I could've picked her up at 11:20 am when she got out of school. We're still deciding whether or not to take her early on Tuesdays & Thursdays.

* * *

To be honest, I'm still not sure exactly how to drop her off at school, since things have changed since I was in kindergarten. Both kids were over at Jessie's this morning while I was at work, but when I went to get them at noon, we walked with Jessie to go get Ela & Layla at their school, so it gave me and Danica an opportunity to see the chaos that is pick-up time. Bonus is that Danica's friends Sophia & Allison also go to the school.

When we arrived about 5 minutes before school let out (minimum day first day?), the crowd was standing outside the fence, huddled around the opening like they were waiting for the Beatles. Anyway, what surprised me is that Jessie told me you don't take the kids to their classrooms anymore, but instead line them up by class outside on the blacktop in the morning. Same goes for pick-up, which is a far cry from the days when you used to hang out on the curb waiting for your Mom to pull up in the car.

Regardless, at least I got an idea of what the process was like and Danica got to see her friend Allison excited after school, thought I doubt Danica even noticed. Guess we'll find out in a few hours how it goes...