The first day back. It always gets me.

.
How much do I suck at blogging?

I spend all day at work on the 'puter, and when I get home, it's just hard to motivate myself to typing up a blog post. It doesn't help that I'm starting to develop signs of carpal tunnel in my right hand again. I had brutal CTS when I was pregnant, in both wrists, so at least it's just the one side now. I'm sure steroid shots are in the near future, and possibly even the release surgery. So sitting and typing a blog entry at the end of the day, not tops on my list.

But it's a big week: Bean started Kindergarten! On Monday, my Big Girl stopped being a preschooler and became a Kindergartener.

For some folks, this is a huge deal because it's the first time their kiddos have been away for so long every day. For full-time working parents, it's not the same. We're already used to being away from our kids all day, so it's a change, but not a dramatic one. So while I watched/heard parents talk about crying, and being faklempt about Kindy, I went about my day pretty much normally.

Bean was pretty low-key about it all, but I keep forgetting that for *her* this is a big change. She's doing after-school at the new preschool that Miss O attends, and she rides the preschool bus from Kindy to the preschool. She loves that :)

On her first day, my good friend Julia hosted a potluck brunch at her place for all the new Kindy parents. I asked for the day off so I could join in. It was great to see everyone whose kids mine have grown up with and realize how far we've all come. We were all there with kid #2 in tow (I let O play hooky with me), and it was such a different playdate than a big kids playdate - much quieter and more low key.

I picked Bean up right off her bus at aftercare. Man, was *that* a rookie mistake. She threw a hairy sh*tfit of epic proportions. She wanted to stay and me, being the "worst mother in the WORLD", screwed those plans up. She creamed, she cried, she kicked, she ran away. "I hate you! I never want to see you!" It was awesome.

On the plus side, any lingering "oh, I wish I could still be a SAHM" thoughts were not only squashed, they were eviscerated.

Tuesday pickup was much the same, as I arrived right when they were starting a movie. Cue another epic hissy.

Tuesday night, I firmly explained to her that I was always going to be showing up and interrupting something - that she needed to accept that and deal with it. Wednesday, I showed up for pickup with a stunt double: grandma. Whether it was that or my talk, pickup was much better. Thank bast, because another hissy might have pushed me to the breaking point.

Thursday was all Dave, and he said it went well. Friday went well, too, so I'm hopeful that particular transition stress is over. Transition + Bean = difficult, but she's got to get a handle on how she reacts.

She's struggling a little with relationships in her after care; mostly with listening to her teacher and doing what she's told / not doing what she isn't. Her aftercare teacher is pretty firm with her, which I like, in a way. But Bean says she's getting madder at her more often. I can understand - it's incredibly frustrating to tell a 5 year old something and be ignored. Over. And over. So I'm working with Bean on the listening/compliance thing; but since something in *my* brain is hardwired to resist the "because it's what you do" reasoning, I'm thinking she may have some of the same genetics ...

Struggles aside, tho, she's just been amazing with all this. On Friday morning when Dave dropped her off, he asked: "So, we park and I walk you to class, right?" And Bean said "yeah... wait - I want to walk by myself. I need to do this." She admitted she was scared about it, but made herself do it. I'm so damn proud of her for that.

Later Friday afternoon, her teacher called to give a first week progress report. She said Bean was doing really well, and - here's the part where my heart grew two sizes - "Her outgoing personality has helped a lot of kids adjust; there isn't a kid she hasn't reached out to and made friends with."

Bean doesn't like the noise of the bells, or the auto-flush toilets, so her teacher lets her use headphones to block the sounds. Paired with Bean's fashion sense, she must look like all she's missing is a football helmet some days ...


.