First Day of School!

We are well settled into the school routine after being back in school for over a month now. The boys are LOVING school and are doing really great.

Dylan started kindergarten. Kind of a huge deal. He handled the first day with quiet bravery....Mom was not quite as put together after dropping him off. I've heard these stories of silly over emotional moms making a huge deal of dropping their kids off for their first day of school....I just didn't think I'd be one of them. I mean what's the big deal? I've done it for preschool for 3 years. BUT it isn't just a big deal...it's a HUGE deal! This is school...real school! Focused more on learning and rules than craft projects and play time. It's structure and learning that are pivotal to get down so that he continues to be successful in subsequent years. It's him going from my little guy to a full blown kid. It's going from being a little kid who's sole responsibility is having fun to a kid who now has to take on more mature tasks and take responsibility for those tasks. And he now goes to school every single week day and be away from our loving eyes for hours of each day. So yeah, it is a big deal!

And he's handled it like a champ and really embraced it. I've seen an amazing transformation in him in the last month. He's gone from a kid content to have everything done for him (seems anything he needed to be independent doing, we've really had to push to make him so) to a little man who is very proud to be taking on new things and looking for more responsibility. It's amazing!

The main reason we waited to send him to kindergarten until this year (last year would have been an option too), other than the fact that it seems very common here to wait for summer birthday babies to start after they turn 6, was that Dylan just wasn't interested in desk work. Sitting and focusing on a paper in front of him just wasn't his thing. But now...now....it's all he wants to do! Even when he's not in school, he wants to color, or draw, or do activity books. I mean, who is this kid?

I'll tell ya who this kid is, he is an awesome kindergartener! Confident, loving his class specialties - computer, art, gym, music and library, making new friends and learning their names (not something he's been that great at...remembering names). I'm so incredibly proud of him!

And then there's this guy that I'm equally proud of....

My sweet Cade. He's in his 2nd year of preschool and has gone from 2 days a week to 3. And the 2 days not at preschool he goes to speech therapy. He also is loving school. He brings home songs from class and he is really practicing his lessons from speech class every day.

My little babies are really growing up. And their personalities are developing and thriving. And they love their mom. And I love them so completely and try to eat up every moment I get to spend with them.