The Daily Hailey

If you need a refresher on how Dekker did on his first day of kindergarten, feel free to read back on that. For a quick overview, I’ll tell you that he was so panicky and nervous, and refused to sit in his chair or talk to anyone, and I had to leave him there, crying and upset. It was a bit reminiscent of him being taken from us into surgery, and that experience had traumatized him so badly, I feared for him that first day.

In the last couple of weeks, Dekker has been constantly buzzing. He had started talking about school and eating lunch with his friends and recess and everything else. He was so much more prepared. To be fair, he had been excited about kindergarten, too, but clearly had nothing to compare it to, and therefore was totally caught off guard when the time came. This time around, he had a good idea of what was coming, and he was genuinely looking forward to it!

Brady and I got him up this morning for breakfast, and he was in such a good mood. Unfortunately, thanks to our hermit-hood, we didn’t have any special cereal to offer him, and hadn’t gotten up early enough to really make anything special. But he doesn’t get too hung up on stuff like that, and happily ate his Cheerios and yogurt like every other day. Then he got dressed, and ended up having extra time to waste before we were going to go. As you may have noticed, getting a nice, semi-posed picture of him is tricky these days. He’s got this fake, under bite smile he puts on as soon as its suggested that he smile for a picture. Or he tries to look extra cute, and squints his eyes like crazy and scrunches his head into his shoulders, kind of shrugging, but he moves the entire time. Its hard! Haha! So we have no perfect, posed, traditional “first day of school” picture of him 🙂 But we got a couple that’ll work just fine 🙂

I drove him to school today, which I did all last year, kind of out of necessity. I’m not sure how that will all play out this year, now that he’s in school full time and not technically required to have a parent pick him up from his class at the end of the day. This is one of those things that I’m not breaking my brain over right now. If I drive him longer than necessary because I haven’t worked out a plan, so be it. That isn’t a huge priority right now. The kid will get to and from school regardless.

I tried for one more picture before we actually headed to school.

Isn’t he handsome? <3

When we entered the boot room, we found his spot on the shelf for his shoes and walked down the hall together to find his classroom. When we did, it was bustling with kids and parents and big backpacks and siblings and all the school stuff you can think of. And my Dekker just calmly walked into it. We located his little cubby at the back of the room and hung up his backpack. He’s sharing his cubby with his favorite friend from last year, and that kid is even in his little desk clump. Its a pretty great layout for him. Once he was all settled, we realized he didn’t have his indoor shoes on, but he asked if I could go get them for him. He was happy at his spot. So of course, I got him his shoes. When it seemed like he was good and settled, I didn’t want to linger, so I asked him for a hug. He gave me my hug and a big kiss too. I hope he never stops giving me kisses! When I stood up a bit, he hugged my legs a little. He reached up and rubbed my belly, a lovely practice he picked up in my pregnancy that I haven’t stopped him from doing. Full disclosure, I both love and hate it. But still, he kind of seemed like he didn’t want me to leave. I knelt back down and whispered “Are you a little bit nervous?” He took a little pause, and let go of me. “No,” he said. “I’m actually ok.” I asked if I should go, and he said that yes, I could.

So I did! And that was it! No issue, no crisis, nothing. What a 180 from last years first day! What a huge relief.

We spent the afternoon getting a handful of things done, though as usual, not the things that we firmly decided needed to get done today. Those always wait longer, haha! When the little boys went to bed, Brady took Laela outside to bike, and I did a bit of blog prepping and some resting. My mom called and offered to shop a bit for us, so I gave her a short Costco list. She brought it by during naptime, complete with a beautiful new fuzzy grey snuggle blanket for me. What is it about a new cozy blanket that just makes you feel safe and comforted? She knows things.

I ducked over to moms a little bit before picking Dekker up from school. She was away for most of last week, and while our 45-ish minutes together didn’t at all cover it, a visit felt goooood. We covered a number of things, from online curtain shopping to new clothes for fall to Jamin and back again. It was a loaded 45 minutes, haha! But very good minutes.

When I went to finally go pick Dekker up from school, I was relieved to see a good handful of parents waiting outside the classroom door. It wasn’t just me! Haha! The bell rang a couple of minutes earlier than it was scheduled to (maybe the school’s clocks are different??) so it wasn’t long at all before kids were streaming into the hallways. Dekker’s teacher emerged first, and each kid that was about to leave she quickly confirmed their plan, who they were meeting, that they knew where to go, etc. Dekker was among the front of the group, and I just have to say, he looked great. He had taken off his hoodie (which he pretty much never does unless someone points out that he’s sweating like a maniac and asks him to take it off) and he was in his bright orange shirt, bright eyed, dirty faced, and smiling.

He looked over my way and spotted me, but before he actually headed my way, he reached over and grabbed his teacher around the waist and gave her a big hug. She squeezed him right back, and then he came running. But I LOVED that!!! I LOVE that he liked his teacher so much that he wanted to hug her before leaving school. He gave me a great big hug and came in for a kiss, but never stopped talking, haha! He was SO hyper.

“Ya, I’m pretty hyper, and noses, and hyper again!”

I tried to squeeze out of him his favorite part of the day and he just stared wide-eyed around him and admitted he couldn’t really think of it. I pressed once, but he insisted he just couldn’t. I imagine he had a LOT swirling around in that noggin of his! So we started to leave, but not before Dekker ducked back and gave his teacher a high five.

We got his shoes on and walked to the van. On the walk, he piped up that he remembered his favorite part of the day. The library 🙂 Exactly what he said every single day last year.

Now that he’s home, he’s super overtired and overstimulated, and all of the things that come with the first day of school. He’s exactly as he should be. Its cute.

(He said to me while I was taking this picture “Yup, take LOTS of pictures of me today!”)

I’ll admit we turned a show on for him to wind down in front of. As much as they scrap twenty-three hours a day, it would appear that someone secretly missed her brother.

Today was an incredibly successful day for Dekker! I see so many good things ahead for him, and sooo many things for me to remember! Gah!! Its possible he’s going to adjust better to this new school year than I am! Wish me luck!