We managed it with only a little whining, and no tears from either of us!
I woke Penny up at 6:15 this morning. "Time to get up and get dressed, sweetie."
"Mom! It's not even morning yet!"
She picked out a new dress and socks and got dressed, and came downstairs to have breakfast. She ate while Alex chased the cat (did I mention he's crawling?) from the living room through the dining room all the way to the kitchen, then got sidetracked trying to get into the cat's food. I distracted him with the rest of his morning bottle. Penny finished breakfast, then put on her shoes while she was watching Dora. (She's getting pretty good with the first step of shoe-tying!)
I wanted to leave at 7:15, which gave us a full hour to get both kids to school - more than I thought I needed, but I'd rather be early than late on the first day! I got got the kids and stuff out to the car, then realized I'd forgotten Penny's backpack, so I went back in for it. While I was getting it, I realized I'd also forgotten her nametag, so I fished that out, too. Whew!
When we got to daycare, Penny wanted to show all the teachers there her nametag and tell them how she was going to kindergarten now and they weren't going to see her anymore, and they were all dutifully impressed.
Penny remained pretty excited while we drove back to the elementary school. We wound up being a good 15 minutes early, but given the number of cars already there, I don't feel too bad about it. We parked across the street, then went into the clinic to give the nurse some stuff she needed. Then we went back out to the office and I asked the secretary who to make the check out to for lunches.
It was still not quite 8:15, so Penny and I went out into the lobby area, where they hold early kids until the bell. It was incredibly crowded -- kids and parents, both -- and Penny got a little nervous about it, the way she does in big crowds of strangers. She did NOT, however, cry or cling, and she did not ask to go home. She just held my hand a little tighter, and a couple of times she said, "Mommy, I want to go see Mrs. Duffey now!" I'm counting it as a victory.
Eventually, they decided that the number of people in the lobby was creating safety hazards, so they were going to let us head to classrooms early. So I led her back to the room, and she found her name at one of the tables. Everyone had a coloring-book page with a cat on it, and there were crayons on the table, so I helped her take off her backpack and she sat down to start coloring, and I prodded her and the little girl sitting across from her into introducing each other. ("What's your name, honey?" "Lexi." "That's a great name. Why don't you tell Lexi your name, sweetie?" "I'm Penny." "Great! I'm sure you are going to be great friends.")
I gave Penny's diabetes kit to Mrs. Duffey, and talked to her about making sure someone watched what Penny ate, in case she didn't eat all her lunch, so Mrs. Philipoom could do a correct dosage after lunch, and she had me write it down for the aide, just to make sure she didn't forget to tell her in all the hustle and bustle of the first day. So I wrote a quick note, and gave Penny another hug and a kiss, and took her picture one more time, and said, "See you after school, sweetie!"
I headed for the door, and heard, "Mommy!!"
I looked back. "What is it, sweetie?"
"I'm bored."
"...Well, finish coloring your kitty, hon, and then I'm sure Mrs. Duffey will have something else for you to do." And then I left.
There were a GAJILLION people parked outside the school by the time I left at 8:20. It was a madhouse. I felt even more justified in trying to get there a bit early. I'll happily wait with her out front until we can go back to the classroom at 8:15 if I have to, but showing up after 8:15 is just going to be asking for trouble.
Anyway, I drove around the block and headed in to work, and got here at 8:30 on the dot. Getting to work an hour and a half later than usual is going to take some getting used to -- I spent half an hour feeling rushed and panicky before I managed to just take a deep breath and start organizing my day. My journal entries are certainly going to start going up somewhat later in the day.
It finally occurred to me that there is no way to have a set schedule for getting my allergy shots and exercising in every week. It just can't happen -- there are too many variables each week. So instead of even trying, I think I'm just going to have to work those things into my schedule individually each week, based on whatever that week's requirements are. So some weeks, I'll manage to get everything in during the day at lunchtime, and some weeks, I'm going to have to do my exercising at night and over the weekend. And it will be okay.
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