Back to Reality

Yesterday was M's first day of 2nd grade. She has been looking forward to the new school year much more than I. I love summer. I'm not quite ready for the structure to return to our lives. We had gotten used to being able to sleep in, casually eating breakfast, slowly heading to the pool, playing games, walking (and riding bikes or scooters) at the park in the evenings, going to bed a little later than normal, etc. Now it's back to reality and structure.

M is at a new school this year due to overcrowding at her old school. With this new school comes new school hours... earlier school hours. Fortunately, she loves school, so going to bed extra early Sunday night was not especially difficult.

Monday morning, M woke up to her alarm clock, got dressed for the big day, and even made herself a bowl of cereal for breakfast. She was ready for the bus approximately 35 minutes before it was scheduled to arrive. 15 minutes later... 20 minutes earlier than the bus is scheduled to arrive... we notice a few of the neighborhood kids with their parents waiting at the bus stop. M wanted to head that way, but being the smart mom who carefully reads the bus route/arrival time handout, I said, "M, I really don't want to stand out at the bus stop for 15 minutes. The bus is not scheduled to arrive until at least 7:30. It's first stop is scheduled at 7:25, and we are the 5th stop. We can go out there in five minutes." M decided to spend her extra time logging on to Webkinz to care for her TWENTY THREE pets (that's another story!).

Five minutes later, while walking to the front door, giggling to myself at all the overly anxious parents and children standing at the bus stop and knowing positively well that we still have at least fifteen minutes before the bus will arrive, I noticed a big yellow blur head down the street, AWAY from our house, and all of those overly anxious, but now smiling parents walking back to their homes. Hmmm. Seems as though the daughter of the oh so smart mom missed the bus on the first day of school.

We hopped in the car and headed to school. Just as we pulled out of our subdivision, M exclaimed, "Mom! I don't have my tennis shoes on! What if we have PE today????" Not able to let her arrive at school on the first day worried about missing PE, we turned around so that she could run back into the house and change her shoes.

Believe it or not, she arrived at school on time and excited about the first day. When the bus arrived that afternoon, she hopped off with a huge grin on her face. A great first day, I could already tell. When she reached our house, we sat on the porch for awhile, talking about her first day of school. After a minute by minute replay of the day's happenings, I finally asked, "Did anyone else miss the bus this morning?"

She replied, "Mom, you're never going to believe this! One of the buses BROKE DOWN, and all the moms had to bring the kids to school. I guess there were too many kids on the bus and the wheels fell off and the bus just went down... like, to the ground. It just broke down!"

Being a former educator, and knowing the importance of background knowledge and how it affects comprehension, leads me to believe that M has never had the experience of a car breaking down. After explaining what "broke down" actually means, we both laughed. It was then time for homework, then dinner, then softball practice, then bath/shower time, then reading, then a little bit of Olympics watching, and then bedtime. Back to structure, back to reality, back to school.