Week 2: Sept 18-21
Last week was a short week for Emily and she had her first P.D Day on Friday.
I don’t know if it was because I was so prepared for the first full week of school or that I knew it was a short week, but I felt so behind all week-long. I believe what put me behind was not planning Emily’s lunches out. I was scrambling each morning trying to put together her lunch, when I should have prepared them the night before.
I am still trying to figure out what Emily likes and doesn’t like in her lunch and what items she will actually eat during the day. I know she likes all the food I put in her lunches because she eats them all the time at home, but for some reason she just doesn’t want to at school. It seems like such an easy concept, pack food that she likes and she will eat it, but it’s proven to be a bit of a challenge.
The first week I packed Emily cucumbers, celery and carrots over the 5 days to see what she would eat. She ate the cucumbers for the first day and then slowly picked at them the next day. I think Emily ate 1 celery stick and didn’t even touch her carrots. Last week I decided to switch up her veggies, so I packed some broccoli and red and yellow peppers. As I was cutting the peppers up, Emily came over a few times asking for a piece, so I thought she would love them for her lunch. After school on Monday, I checked her lunch and she ate 1 piece of broccoli and only a few peppers. I couldn’t let them go to waste, so I continued to pack them in her lunch for the whole week and each day she would bring them home. My attempt to get her to eat them each day failed and I ended up throwing them out on Thursday!
Although I felt behind all week, Emily did so well when getting ready for school and actually going into school. My sister took Emily to school on Monday, as we had Olivia’s doctor appointment, but she told me Emily didn’t cry. She was also excited to go to school on Tuesday and Wednesday, with no tears!
Thursday was a whole different story!
We started the day off great. I was ahead of my morning schedule and it was an exciting day because it was pajama day and Emily got to bring in her favorite stuffed animal. We were all ready 15 minutes before we had to leave. I don’t remember what we did for those 15 minutes, but as soon as it was time to leave Emily decided she needed to go to the bathroom. So she went to the bathroom…okay, not too worry we still had lots of time since I try to leave earlier than we need to anyways. We go outside and Emily says it’s too bright and she insisted she needed her sunglasses and would not leave without them. She just had them in her hands while we were getting ready, so we quickly went back inside to try to find them. Obviously they are nowhere to be found so after convincing Emily she would be ok without them, we were ready to go. I looked at the time and we were now leaving 12 minutes later than we should have, so I know we needed to run. I’m tried to hurry Emily along, but it was like she wanted to go slower than she ever had in her life! I think we all know what that is like! She then got frustrated because I was too far ahead and she couldn’t keep up. I had to continuously stop and wait for Emily to catch up.
We were just outside of the school yard and heard the bell ring, so then we really needed to run. Emily then started to cry. We made it to the school and everyone had already gone in. I knew we only missed everyone by a minute, but when you get there and everyone else is in, it just feels like you are so late. I tried to give Emily her backpack, but she wanted nothing to do with it. She had a little bit of a meltdown, said she wanted to go home and even tried running away from me.
At that point I really considered walking back home with her, but I knew how excited she was for pajama day and to show all her friends her stuffed animal. We finally made it to the door; Emily was still crying. A teacher opened the door and held her hand to bring her in, while I was behind making sure she wouldn’t run out. I waited a few minutes and watched through the window to make sure she was ok. I saw Emily with her teacher and she looked like she had calmed down. I knew that she would be ok!
Just to make sure, I messaged Emily’s teacher and she said she was great and calmed down as soon as she showed her friends her stuffed animal. She also told me Emily said she was sad because she was scared she missed school. I felt so bad because I think it was my rushing and showing a little panic that got her worked up.
Now looking back, I should have just stayed calm and if we were a few minutes late then that may have been better than stressing Emily out and having her get so upset. I know it’s only JK, so if she was a few mintues late it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, I just hate to be the one who makes her late!
My lesson learned from the second full week of school is that being unprepared makes things a lot harder. Even if it’s just preparing lunches the night before and planning out lunches for the week, it totally makes a difference in the mornings. If I ever feel too lazy to plan it out, I’ll think back to this week and remember how it felt!
I hope you are all having a great time with school and your kids are loving every day!
Don’t forget to sign up with your email (in the right hand column) to be notified when a new blog post is up!
-Corrie
*Sidenote: If you would like to follow along with us daily, check out our Daily Vlogs over on our YouTube Channel – The Baby Gang! Don’t forget to subscribe if you haven’t already!
The Baby Gang 