Wow, I’ve gotten so behind! I mean lets just revisit February for a minute. This picture from the first day of school is something I’ve wanted to write a post about for a while……obviously months at this point, since we’ve now had our last day of school ha!
This picture captured everything in how that morning was going. The first day of school is a big deal. Especially when it is your first borns very first day of full-time school (like all day everyday), in a new country, having never been to even preschool. I was all kinds of emotional and nervous.
I found out when we were planning to move that you start full-time school in England when you are 4 turning 5 in what is called Foundation Stage or Reception. I heard that and the anxiety set in. I mean I was mentally ready for him to be in pre-school for a few hours every other day (that would have been the plan had we not moved). Lincoln’s birthday is in November so my plan was to start him in Kindergarten when he was 5 turning 6 within the school year. I asked if we could kind of follow that plan and wait until the next year to start him full-time. But that doesn’t work here. In the U.S. you have a little more flexibility when it comes to a child’s age and what grade they are in. In England they have to stay within the age group that their birthday falls in. So if we waited to put him in the next year he would go straight into Year 1…….aaannnd since he’d never even been to preschool yet, I wasn’t about to throw that at him.
Looking at it in hindsight it seems so silly that I was so worried, but then I think thats because I’ve gotten used to the British school system (which I love, but I’ll save that for my “last day of school” post). It’s funny how the unfamiliar and unknown can affect us. I was definitely creating expectations of my knowledge of school in the U.S. for what the experience would be like here. It is totally different, and definitely what he needed and was ready for, but that didn’t necessarily make it easier for either of us.
So we got here in December and I started the process of getting him into school right after Christmas break had ended. I quickly learned that once we got his applications for school in that it would probably be another month or so before he could actually start. This was fine with me because I wasn’t in any rush for him to start…………until a few weeks later and we were both so ready for him to start ha.
So in February, Lincoln had his very first day of school. I think ecstatic probably best describes how he was feeling.
I guess I’ll start there. I can still very vividly remember walking into the school gates with him that morning and him holding his book bag, with all that excitement bubbling out. He informed me as we walked in “Mom, you know the reason I need to go to school is so I can start going to college!” Ha! thanks to all my siblings who are currently in college, your influence apparently stuck big time. We walked into his classroom and his teacher (who had come to do a home visit the week before, so Lincoln was somewhat familiar with him) came and guided him in to join the rest of his class. I waved goodbye and left, thinking about how smoothly everything had gone. Then I spent the rest of the day stressing about how it was going for him (first time school mom problems).
Fast-forward to pick-up time. Kennedi, Benson and I were all there to pick him up. We had plans to stop by the park to play as we walked home. As I approached the pick-up area I saw Lincoln standing out front next to his teacher, and boy did he look ticked. His teacher came over to me and informed me that “Lincoln did great, but it was a bit of a long day for him, and he had a bit of a disagreement with the TA”. That was it, I’m super grateful to his teacher because he was so understanding and didn’t say one thing to me about Lincoln’s not so positive behaviour at the end of school. I mean I’m his Mom, I’ve seen the best and definitely worst of his behavior. My mind was imaging all that they might have encountered with this so called ‘disagreement’.
Lincoln came over threw his school bag in the stroller and declared “I’m never ever going back to school again!”. Thankfully I had the sense to not say anything about school and to just focus on the park. As we played on the teeter totter we were able to talk about his day and it became pretty obvious that at the end of the day he had been frustrated when he had to switch from play time to class time. Getting used to following a structured schedule was a little rough at first (not to mention the completely foreign environment new people and different English etc). But after letting some energy out at the park he was happy as could be and things seemed to be looking up.
It’s funny how pictures are just a shot of that one moment in time. I knew in the future I’d look at that picture and remember all the happy things about his school because we’d have so many more memories tied to the school and new place we were living. But I want to make sure I remembered the hard things about this week too. First of all to remind myself that I can totally do hard things, and Second that God is so aware of each of us and our individual circumstances.
Well, the next day he walked into school a little apprehensive but positive. Things seemed to be going well until he threw up after dinner. The school policy is that they can’t go to school for two days just to make sure they’re not spreading anything. I remember thinking great, he has one day of school and now he is home again (he was totally okay, the throw up incident turned out to be a fluke). I knew he needed consistency to get used to all the changes.
So here he was stuck home and so full of energy and of course Kennedi got hit with some kind of virus that day. She was sicker than I’ve ever seen her, fighting a constant fever for days. I couldn’t wait for Friday, Lincoln could go back to school, I could hopefully recover a little from being up all night with Kennedi (I’d been sick the week before too). It was that little piece of hope you grasp for to try and survive, well I was holding onto the thought of Friday like you wouldn’t believe. Well Thursday evening really put me in my place. He started throwing up after dinner and kept it up all night. I remember thinking “is this how bad he doesn’t want to go back to school?”
Well so much for the hope of creating some normalcy. Kennedi was just starting to come out of whatever she had and Lincoln was legitimately sick with some kind of stomach bug. I don’t know what kind of stomach flu allows you to not throw-up all day but constantly throughout the night….for days……but I loathed it, whatever it was. So he only made it to two days of school his first week and then it was a school holiday so they were off for a week.
It was a mixture of so many things timed perfectly together that just brought me to a low point that I don’t think I’ve felt for a long time (like since being a missionary) if ever. I feel like I’m a pretty strong person and can handle a lot, but maybe because of all the new change added to all this perfectly timed illness, the lack of warmth and sunshine, my kids (and me) really struggling with being away from family, and still getting to know our new “village” (it really does take a village people!) that it was just the right combo to put me over the edge.
So lets take a minute to talk about Gratitude, because that was my saving grace at that low point. I’m a firm believer that gratitude is what allows God to bring joy into our lives. There is a quote from one of my favourite talks by Thomas S. Monson “Sincerely giving thanks not only helps us recognize our blessings, but it also unlocks the doors of heaven and helps us feel God’s love.”
The day that everyone seemed to be on the mend the sun came out and we went on a walk. It was amazing to me to see what happened just getting out and feeling the sun on my face. I went from down in the dumps to feeling so grateful for the sun, then grateful for the beautiful place we get to live, which turned into feeling gratitude for the amazing opportunities we’ve been given, especially this new (not always easy) experience. It was such a drastic switch in emotion that it really impacted me that day, and I wanted to remember it. To remember to focus on gratitude for the little things that surround me in my day to day as well as the big things.
Moral of the story is, it’s amazing what one picture can make us remember about a moment in time, and that’s why I started this blog……hopefully I can get better at keeping it up to date🙈.
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Life of a Price 