First Day of Pre-K
HOW can August already be over? And how can my kid already be in pre-K? And why does it always surprise me when I think about how quickly time passes? Does that ever change?
Last week was sort of the school trial-run for everyone – students, parents, teachers and bus drivers included. We had orientation on Wednesday, which was the first time Evan got to see his classroom and his teacher. I was happy to see that his class is small (15 kids), there are a lot of adults involved in each room on a daily basis and everyone we talked to knew Evan’s name. He was pretty bummed he didn’t get to stay after orientation was over. School has cool Legos.
Thursday was the official first day that included theoretical bus riding. The town really WANTS the kids to ride the bus – as far as I know they bus almost everyone, unless you are close enough to just walk across the street – because the school is old and in a weird location (a slice of land between two semi-busy roads with very close-together houses on the other side) so they have almost no parking. Not even enough for the employees. And since they moved ALL the town pre-K classes to this one building there are a lot of buses and only one drop-off lane. Basically, it’s a mess, so the fewer parents bring their kids to the school the better.
But because they’re busing SO many kids it’s taking some time to figure out the logistics. On Thursday we were all ready to go and out front at 8:15, even though our bus is supposed to pick Evan up at 8:35. Luckily our bus stop is our front steps, so it’s not hard to hang out.
Aaaaaand at 8:49 (official school start time: 8:50) I tossed both kids in the car and we drove to school. I had (stupidly) scheduled a newborn photo session that morning and I needed to get going at 9 am, so I couldn’t take the chance the bus wasn’t going to show up at all. Luckily there was one drop-off parking spot open and I ran Evan up to the front door where someone whisked him off to his classroom. He was so excited to go he didn’t even look back but I was a little sad we didn’t have the “I love you, have fun!” hug moment I had imagined on our front steps as he got onto his bus.
To make myself feel worse, I didn’t make it back in time for his bus drop off either – even though they were 20 minutes late. My sitter was there, freaking out because I told her the bus came at 12:15 and there was no bus at 12:15, so I called the school on my way home to make sure Evan wasn’t sitting along in a hallway somewhere without a bus, since he didn’t take one TO school. I was imagining the bus system running like an airline, where if you miss your outgoing flight you can’t catch one back, but they assured me he was on his way. I got home 4 minutes after he did and he said “MOMMY! I rode on a FREE BUS!!!”
I was very glad we had a do-over day on Friday when Caroline and I had nowhere to be and plenty of time to wait for our bus…which came at 9:52. I’m hoping by the end of this week they’ll get here at 8:35.
Awwwwwwwwww! Such a sweet post! Tomorrow is our first day at pre-school and I am pretty much a mess about it. No buses for us. I don’t think I could handle that.
He looks so big! I cannot believe he is old enough to go on a bus! Public school doesn’t start here until the 9th, and Cole’s preschool starts the 11th, so we have some time before I cry over my big 4 year old.
Chicago Public Schools doesn’t bus anyone unless the kid’s disabled OR you’re going to a super far away charter school or something, and even then they don’t do home pick up, you have to get to an existing school, and all kinds of other headaches. We could take public transit the half mile to Niko’s school the the road the bus runs on? We’d have to walk several blocks just to cross the street to get to the bus running the correct way (although it’s required by law to stop for pedestrians in cross walks, nobody actually DOES IT), so what’s the point in taking the bus for just a few blocks? So we spend almost half an hour dawdling along a half mile route because four year olds CAN. NOT. WALK. QUICKLY.
Evan looks so big! I’m a fan of uniforms. I wore them from 2nd-8th grade and they really simplified life. I hope his whole year is fun.