January, part 1

(That title is to encourage me to write a part 2.  We’ll see.)

Kenzi started back at school on Jan 3rd and it was almost harder to send her back to school than it was at the beginning of the year.  We’d adjusted to our routine of having her at school from 9-2 (aside from a sick day nearly every other week) and it had become the new normal.  Then she had two weeks off for winter break and it just wasn’t nearly long enough.  I loved having her around all the time.  I loved that Kevey had someone to entertain him.  I loved that we could have playdates involving both kids.  And let’s face it, I loved having lazy mornings.  Maybe when she’s in 5th grade and starting to think she’s too cool to hang out with me, then I’ll be the mom who’s relieved that school’s starting up again.  But for now, it’s grudgingly that I took her back to school.

I’m thankful that Kenzi loves her teacher and loves her class and it’s so fun to see how much she’s learning.  From what her teacher says and from what we’ve seen, the academic stuff is a breeze for her but the social/emotional aspect is an issue every now and then.  She sometimes panics and overreacts if things aren’t working like she thinks they should, and I could take a lesson from her teacher on talking her off the ledge without getting upset myself.  I also think sometimes she gets a little overwhelmed by the physical size of the school; when we drop her off, she usually just wants to stand at the wall until the bell rings instead of going off to play.  She doesn’t act nervous or anxious necessarily but just doesn’t feel comfortable approaching a group of friends to play.  It sounds like she does fine interacting with classmates for the rest of the day so maybe it’s just the size of the playground and number of kids, bringing up the small-fish-big-pond insecurity.  I was a supershy kid so I may be oversensitive to how she’s adjusting – overall she’s a much friendlier and outgoing kid than I ever was so I probably don’t need to be concerned.  It’s just that temptation to compare your kids to everyone else’s kids, and depending on the area of comparison you either come away thinking you’re kid’s way better than everyone else’s or your kid’s extremely weird and in need of an emergency intervention.

In other news, our beloved Carbos moved to Los Angeles last week (is that it? just a week ago?) and we miss our buddies like crazy.  I’m thankful they’re close enough that we can see them a couple times a year but supersad about not getting to see them all the time anymore.  Probably didn’t help that in their last two weeks here, we saw them more than we normally would in a year.  Instead of getting sick of them, we just realized more intensely how awesome they all are.  And of course it’s after they move that Keves decides that he’s going to marry Indie.  Don’t know what he’s got ’til it’s gone, that boy.  He also said they will have two kids, named Lamby and Rhino.  Bern gave him a hard time about it, but really, Hebrew-speaking folk would think we’re calling our son Lamby so it can’t be that weird of a name.

And in other other news, today is our anniversary.  We will celebrate by dropping the kids off at Awana and rushing to dinner before we have to pick them up again.  But it’s free childcare and we will take what we can get!  Until part 2…