survive my son's first week in school

Yay and hurray!

Friday is almost ending. I just picked up my son and my neighbour’s daughter from school. Ammar is currently in the shower, getting rid of his “school smell”. He claims he does this only coz Jimmy Neutron does it. I should encourage this habit :)

I feel great, relieved and thankful. My anxiety is pretty minimal, though we still need to work out a few kinks. Coz he’s just gone to school, it’s now kinda like orientation week for the kids.. so no homework. Once that comes into the picture, we’ll need to ensure that gets done before play time and TV.

I am immensely proud of him. He seems to get the hang of it pretty fast, by the look of his grin that greets me at the end of each day. When I ask him how it went, his reply was often “Great, just great!”. We’ll wait a few years before that same reply is dripped in sarcasm :P

Nonetheless, I am so glad I survived this, tho of course this is just the beginning.

Perhaps he’s getting used to the new place. I dropped by to pass him his snack during break time. At least today he attacked it with genuine appetite. Phew..I’m relieved. As we headed back to his classroom, he ran towards another boy who happened to be his friend from kindergarten. Aah.. what would we do without friends :)

My neighbour has offered to send and pick up my son, since her daughter is also attending the same schools. They even maintain the same time slot. So it should be not too much trouble, she claims. I gave in, mainly coz I wanted someone who’s a familiar face and I can count on her to keep an eye on Ammar. God bless her! And I thank my lucky stars for this much-needed act of kindness.

His bag is packed, shirt and pants ironed, hanging in the closet. I’ve bought a whole bunch of stuff for his lunchbox. I spent 3 hours putting plastic covers on all his text books. Wrote his name in big bold letters, but forgot to buy neon green/yellow stickers so that he can spot his book when they’re stacked with the rest of the lot (trust me, this is a good thing).

He had a hard time sleeping. Mainly coz my cousin was here, and so was her two sons who happen to be my boy’s heroes! They’re slightly older than Ammar so naturally, he idolizes these boys completely! They were wrestling each other, playing hide and seek, cops and robbers.. the whole works. By the time they left, he was too excited to go straight to bed.

He finally fell asleep around 12:30AM.. yeah, not a good start. But at least I managed to refrain from nagging him or even resort to threats (guilty especially when I’m so exhausted). He watched a bit of Star Wars “Return of the Jedi” before finally dozing off. I asked him which character he liked most. Surprisingly he said Darth Vader. Slightly alarmed I ask why. His reply was classic for a 6 yearold, “Coz he’s so shiny!”.

Wish us luck for tomorrow :)

Of course I’ll survive. I just want to make sure I go through this with minimal anxiety and basically hope for the best. Naturally, this is my maternal instinct at its most neurotic. But I can’t help it. So i want to put it down here so that I can document it and perhaps get tips on how I can make it easier, for both my son and me.

He’s been at kindergarten for 3 years. It takes up about 5 hours of his day each time.. from getting ready to arriving back home. Come Tuesday, his day starts as early as 6.30AM and he’ll only be done by 5.30 PM. He’s doing double duty. He covers 2 curriculum (it’s a standard thing here.. all kids go thru it). And I can imagine he’s going to feel tired and maybe even complaint about it. And I wanna sorta psych myself properly, so that when he does, I can reassure him and help him get through it.

I know, I worry too much. A friend commented that he’ll adjust soon enough. And once he makes friends, he’ll feel more excited about it. I know it’s true.. but I just wish I could be more relaxed about it. Bottomline, I’d like him to feel excited about school and maybe worry less about how it’s gonna affect him.