1st Day of School: Chicago Style

Phew. We made it through the summer. Alive, even. I'm willing to bet that someday (probably mere days from now) I'll talk wistfully about the summer of 2006 when we first moved here and I was home with the kids for two glorious months and how we spent sunny days exploring our new city. I'll forget the refusals to get dressed, the angry fits about anything that didn't go one's way, the incessant nervous-habit nose picking (not mine, mind you), and my near constant just-beneath-the-surface desire to bring out the TV and plug it in. But somehow we made it. And Baxter went to school today. Let's take a collective deep sigh, shall we?

He went marching off at top speed this morning. Truly, he got dressed and was out the door like a flash. We literally had to call him back from half a block away to take a few pictures. He even pushed his way through the crowded playground like he knew where he was going. We were a bit bogged down by the large bags of school supplies we were required to bring. This is apparently a midwestern "thing", bringing all your own school supplies (we're talking about over $100 worth of stuff, including paper towels, copy paper, and a disposable camera!).

However, once he found a clear spot and stood there, the reality of this day seemed to set in: he would soon watch the three of us leave while he would spend the next six hours with complete strangers. This was right about the time when he started to try to hide under the shade of Lyle's stroller, yelling, "But I'm HOT!!"(much to Lyle's chagrin) and holding onto my pants for dear life.

At any rate, he went in with his teacher and had a great day while we fretted at home about how he was faring. He came out with the same huge grin he started with at home and said his day was "great", "went fast because it was so fun", and remarked that he "couldn't wait to go back". He loved his teacher and seemed happy with his classmates, although he couldn't think of a single one's name.

Lyle was certainly happy to be reunited with his big brother this afternoon. He spent much of the day crying for his "Baba". The worst was when we got in the car to go to the shoe store and he pointed to Baxter's empty booster seat and sobbed "Baaabaaa...Baaabaa..." all the way there. I realized it had been many months since he had been in the car without him; in fact, he had not been without him period since the move - not even for a few hours! It occurred to me, with a startled pang, that Baxter is in fact Lyle's very best friend. So they had a great afternoon, so happy to be together again.

Sadly, things took a turn for the worse tonight. Baxter was to read for 20 minutes with an adult and then fill out his reading log. However, there was no reading log sent home yet, so I asked him to just write the name of the book and the author and he could bring that in tomorrow. Well, remember that little "issue" with, um, writing? You know, that skill that we didn't practice all summer? Yeah, that came back to haunt us tonight. Granted, the book title was kind of daunting: he had chosen to read "Homicidal Pyscho Jungle Cat", a Calvin and Hobbes comic book. Nice. At first I thought about suggesting a different one, wondering what Ms. Stalter's first impression of us as parents would be, but of course within seconds I realized I didn't care.

What I didn't think about was that it was a long title, and by the time we were ready for the writing part, it was bedtime and he was a zombie. So, without getting into the gruesome details, let's just say there was an angry "explosion", most of which was caused by us deciding he wasn't coping well with this task and would just need to finish it in the morning. I'm sure he wouldn't have minded this one bit except that it meant he also had to wait until morning to play a baseball game on www.snoopy.com. We hope he'll make it through this minor assignment in the morning!

But so far, he seems to really love Burley. (It's just us he hates!) We'll be sure to post at times about our impressions of it as compared to the public schools we were familiar with in San Francisco. I hope he continues to love it; I'm sure we'll all learn a great deal.