First Day of School 2008

It was a wonderful time yesterday with my family from the beginning when I woke up my children in preparation for today through the rest of the entire day. I even enjoyed the “American Girl—Kit Kittredge” movie and I am getting to be a “sap” since I had tears in my eyes at several junctures during the movie!!!! I was very impressed with my seven year old son who sat right through the movie and appeared to be interested.

My daughter certainly enjoyed the movie as there were many similarities between her and the main character. I had no idea what an “American Girl” doll was prior to a few years ago and whoever is doing the marketing is very intelligent because the movie appealed not only to the intended demographic but the entire family as well.

Yes, spending the day with my family did beat going into the office for the day and that was the last day of summer vacation for my children. This morning I was awake very early for several reasons one being I had something on my mind that I couldn’t let go of and the other reason was I wanted to go to the gym so I could join my wife in taking our children to school.

I essentially tossed and turned all night and I know this is just my brain working overtime. I wasn’t coming up with “worse case scenarios” or anything of the sort. I just had something on my mind and my brain wouldn’t shut down. Actually my brain did shut down but restarted after only a few hours of sleep. This is just as well because it kick started my day much quicker.

I was at the gym much earlier than normal and got in a very good run. I had some of the nagging shin problems of the other day but these issues soon went away as I stepped up the intensity. Today was a very intense training session and as strange as it seems I feel better going faster than I feel going slower. On Monday I “slogged” through the run but today I was invigorated and excelled through the run. I have pared down my workout so I could go back home and have breakfast for my children and this is what happened.

I walked into the house and was taking out my smelly workout clothes when I heard someone come down the stairs. Much to my surprise this someone was my daughter who is anything but a “morning person”. It appears all she needs is a little incentive and I guess today being the first day of the school year was that incentive. She was fully dressed and was even smiling. To say this was a departure from her normal morning self would be a huge understatement. My daughter is not a morning person but today she was beaming very early and continued as the day transpired.

I was extremely impressed with her this morning and I had asked her if this would be a recurring event and my daughter responded with a flat, “NO!” I suspect she will be back to her old morning self by next week as the newness of the school year wears off. I did enjoy the new morning version of my daughter because the old morning version is not exactly a joy to be around.

My son was still upstairs when I came in as I prepared breakfast for my daughter (which was another big thing since she usually doesn’t eat until well after 10:00 am). He did come down and was his usual smiling self even at this early hour. I didn’t realize it until a few minutes later that my son was indeed nervous about his first day. He had to run to the bathroom several times and after he came out I asked if he was indeed nervous and much to his credit he said, “Yes”. I did my best to calm him down explaining that it is completely natural to be nervous and he will make friends at school. He seemed to be a little better as it got closer to the time we had to depart for school.

We took the annual first day of school pictures in front of the house and for the first time in two years I was actually in the pictures. The best part is being able to be with them for their first day and I know as long as I continue in recovery life there will be many more of these first days to come one at a time!!!

We made the short walk to school and saw some old neighbors we hadn’t seen since we got back from New Jersey. As it turns out one of our old neighbors’ son is in our son’s class which provided a big relief to our son. Once our son found this out I could see the relief on his face. It is strange (maybe not so strange) that out of 10 second grades and 200 children my son actually has a familiar face in his class and someone he was talking about the other day. I am not big into coincidences and I do believe there is “something” watching out over all of us.

My wife took our daughter to her classroom and I took my son to his classroom. I met my son’s teacher who seems very nice and is in the category of all the teachers my daughter has had at this school which is very caring. I noticed the classroom was well organized and I do believe our son is in good hands. I kissed my son good bye and wished him a great day. Wow; it seems like it was just yesterday I was picking up my daughter from second grade and now my son is entering second grade. Time does move by quickly and thankfully time is now moving in a positive manner. It was a magnificent day and now the school year is underway for our children.