The First Day of the Rest of Your Life, Ryan

Well, the inevitable has arrived - Ryan is off to kindergarten!  We've had a busy week of pre-school (not to be confused with preschool) activities like the parent's meeting and family ice cream social and shopping for school supplies, and Ryan seemed pretty jazzed about the idea of going to a new school. It certainly helps that our neighbors Ali and Brayden and our friend David will also be in kindergarten this year, and we learned today that a boy from his preschool class is also at our school. 

Our whole family's schedule is rearranged now - Sam will leave later in the morning and take Jack to preschool while I will drop Ryan off at school, head into work for 5 hours, and then pick him up after school before picking Jack up at preschool.  Previously the boys went to preschool 3 days a week while I worked, but I was able to change my schedule to line up with the school hours. 

Each day we went to pick Ryan up from preschool another teacher came up to us to tell us how much they were going to miss Ryan - I'm more emotional about him leaving this great school with its wonderful, caring staff than I am about him moving up to kindergarten. 

Anyway, yesterday the kids only went for a 45 minute block with just a few of their classmates (there are 32 - THIRTY-TWO - kids in his class... hello public school system!) so Sam and Ryan hopped on their bikes to pedal down to the school (I walked). 

Once there, we had to learn the important task of locking up the bike (the smallest one in the bike corral!) and making sure the key got clipped to his backpack.

Ryan had gotten this backpack at the preschool field day back in June but it was plain black so we headed to Hobby Lobby a few weeks ago for some patches and other decorative items. We were both thrilled to find the guitar patch.

Here's Sam, Ryan's friend from preschool. They were excited to see each other again (seriously, I did brush Ryan's hair before we left the house!).

My biggest concern for Ryan was having to leave Honu behind, so we've been talking about it for a few weeks now. Ryan decided to make a bed for Honu with the other stuffed turtles (and Casey dog) so that he wouldn't be lonely while Ryan was at school.

After 45 minutes we returned to the school, where Ryan emerged all smiles. Sam left for work and Ryan and I went to lunch at Noodles & Co. with Jena, David and Andrew (who was really confused that Jack wasn't with us).

I had asked Ryan what he wanted to do as a special "Mom and Me" activity and he picked the Downtown Aquarium. We don't go there often because it is EXPENSIVE and the exhibits aren't that great, but Ryan really enjoyed spotting sea life.  He was really impressed by these upside-down jellyfish.

We spent some time with the anemones and clownfish (aka Nemo, not that Ryan has ever seen that movie)...

...caught the mermaid show ("Mom, mermaids aren't real. Those are just girls wearing costumes")...

...and introduced Honu to some of his cousins.

We then headed over to the big REI downtown to see if someone could help us fit his bike helmet better - they did, by recommending a new helmet that was actually the proper size for his head (imagine that). It's not green, surprisingly!

We hit Costco for some lunchbox items and then picked Jack up at preschool. The teachers were all happy to see Ryan and they fawned over the "big kindergartner".

Jack had a surprisingly hard time at drop off when he realized that his brother was not coming with him. I would have expected that he has such a tight group of friends at preschool that the loss of Ryan would affect him minimally, but I was quite wrong.  However, he was still cranky when we picked him up and the boys continued to bicker and harp on one another once we got home.

Finally Sam got home (leaving later in the morning means he'll now get home later at night) and the neighbor boy Brayden came over to ride bikes. Ryan saw that Brayden didn't have training wheels on his bike and he ran to get Sam, saying, "Dad, would you care to take the training wheels off my bike?"  Sam obliged and a cyclist was born.

Sam and I had tickets to see Jack Johnson at Red Rocks so we hustled out as soon as the babysitter arrived. She told us on our return that the boys had a really hard time settling down to go to sleep, but what else is new? I'm hoping the sheer exertion of kindergarten knocks Ryan right out over the next few days!

So this morning was the REAL first day as Ryan would be going for the full day, 9am - 3:30 pm. The first thing I did was pack his lunch - I bought this Yumbox lunchbox earlier this summer and we just love it. The compartments are labeled Dairy, Fruit, Veg, Grains, Protein so it's pretty mindless to figure out what to pack, and the variety means Ryan will find something he likes.

We pick up the titanium spork at REI to replace one we lost camping at Jackson Lake - I'm hoping the fact that it is green (his favorite color) will inspire him to keep track of it.

It was quite obvious when Ryan woke up that he had not gotten enough sleep last night - he was slow to eat breakfast and adamantly insisted that he couldn't ride his bike to school because it didn't have training wheels but he didn't want me to put the training wheels back on because he can ride a bike without training wheels. He didn't want to ride his scooter or walk either, so into the car we climbed.

He was just feeling cranky as we walked to school, and the thought of making new friends was not cheering him up.

We had a few last snuggles and then his teacher, Mrs. Eppard, met him at the door. She pressed a name tag to his shirt and he embarked on his new school journey. Wisely on the part of the teachers, the parents are expected to remain outside the classroom!

I peeked through the door to see him getting settled in. I think he will do just fine once he meets all the kids and figures out the new routine.