The Week of Firsts

Since I am a crazy addict of blogs, I thought it might be fun to create our own family blog on the adventures of the Bass Family.

Monday was the first day of school for Zachary. It was different in that Zachary has started his 8th grade year in a new school. We have moved over to the public schools in the new Independence schools that were part of the boundary change battle. We are very excited about this change - the option to send our children to public schools, knowing they will continue to receive as good as education that they received in private school, as well as, our property values potential for increase. I really feel like this is a great move for Western Independence.

Hunter's first day of Kindergarten was Tuesday and it was quite exciting. I took him to the bus stop and got him on his way. Of course, I needed to make sure that he was doing okay, so I arrived at school before he did and was able to get some pictures of him getting off the school bus and walked him in to class for his first day. I think overall he had a good day.

We had a little mishap at the bus stop - David arrived to pick him up and the bus pulled up, but with no Hunter. He called me in a panic and we, along with the bus driver, was trying to reach the school when my cell phone rang and it was Hunter's teacher. They had put him in the "Parent Pick-up" line instead of the bus line, which was okay - just a little nerve wracking wondering where he was on his first day!

Hunter loves riding the bus and looks forward to riding the bus. As I stated above, he had a really good first day of school, however, days 2,3 & 4 were not quite as good. When he got home from school on Wednesday, he had a card that he made for his dad that just said how much he missed him throughout the day. We thought it would be better on Thursday but another card comes home from school - this time the sadness was even greater and it turns out he had a rough day and cried throughout. He is very homesick. I guess this is a disadvantage of not going to daycare every day, but I still wouldn't change it. He told his dad and I both that if he had known how long school actually was going to be, then he would have given the teacher the wrong answers at the Kindergarten screening in order to stay home for another year.

So...here comes Friday, I decided today that I was going to drive Hunter to school and go in a little early to talk with his teacher. We got Zach off to school on his bus and then had our special time together by going to McDonalds for breakfast. Everything seemed to be going well and we got in the car to go on to school when the tears started.

The talk with the teacher didn't go so well as Hunter cried the entire time and my short little visit ended up getting me to work by 10:30. As I was leaving, I could hear him crying clear down the hall. I ended up going back and he wasn't the only one crying at that point! My tears were just a rolling too - I ended up going back into the classroom with him (as the teacher didn't know what to do at this point either) and I watched as he practiced his name (again, he didn't understand why he needed to work on this, as he already knows how to write his name). He got through this paper and ended up participating in the next activity and then I was able to leave without incident.

I received a phone call at noon from Hunter and the school counselor (she's pretty busy this week with crying Kindergartners and helping the teachers). He had a pretty rough morning, but the rest of the afternoon was great! I think maybe we reached a turning point - he made a new friend and seems to be okay with going back Monday. Keep your fingers crossed!

The enrollment was quite higher than they had expected and so the classes right now are at about 33-34 per class - so, they have added an additional class and Hunter will be moving to that class on Monday and his class size should be around 23.

No news to report on the Peyton, Aubrey & Tanner front - status quo is good at times!

We hope that you enjoy our new family blog and will try and update it as often as possible. This was pretty long - so I'll try and keep the rest of them shorter. We had a lot to report this week with school starting.

Dawn