First Day of School

Evan starts "school" on Monday.  Yes, you read that right.  Our little two year old was accepted into the Belin Methodist Learning Center today - just a couple of days shy of the first day of school.  We are pumped!

We decided we wanted to get Evan into a program for several reasons.  (1) He desperately needs to be socialized with other children.  He needs to be aware that this is not Evan's world.  (2)  With Mattie due to arrive in a just a few weeks we felt it necessary that she gets my full attention for a few hours a day since she will only be at home with me for 3 months.  (3)  Let's face it - it's just gonna make it a hell of a lot easier on me. In order to get any of my writing done I need to be sure I can get at least two hours of silence per day - that probably isn't very likely with a newborn and a two year old fighting for attention.

I was so ecstatic to get the phone call today that Evan was accepted into the two year old program.  We've been on the waiting list since April and things were not looking too favorable.  Evidently families from Georgetown all the way up to Myrtle Beach are trying to get into this school - we got lucky!  I actually spent the better part of my day today researching more programs because I was reaching the point of desperation.  Most programs in the area begin on Monday so if you were not contacted by August 1st that meant they were full and more than likely would not have an opening until the following May.  I had basically given up on the idea that Evan would possibly get into Belin so I was putting him on waiting lists for other programs I wasn't nearly as fond of...I wasn't sure what we were going to do because we received no phone calls by August 1st and I will be going back to work in January (I will talk more about that later).

This morning, in my desperate state, I sent Robert to what would be better described as a day care and he literally walked in, got one glimpse of the place and walked out.  He called me and said, "Absolutely not.  Our son is not stepping foot in that place.  It smelled like a dog kennel in there."  This pretty much sums up what many of the local day cares were like - dirty and chaotic - two qualities that just aren't gonna work for me.  We wanted Evan in a structured environment where activities were carefully thought out and planned.  We wanted him to be surrounded by kids his own age and be in a classroom where every child gets the proper attention they deserve.  Our hope was that the program we found would be focused on reading and literacy, but also incorporate physical activities and fun.  We found all of this and more at Belin.  Thanks to a family dropping out at the last minute, we were called to attend Open House tonight and were so excited with everything we saw and heard.  Evan's two teachers are fabulous and he only has 6 other kids in his class.  You can't get a much better teacher/child ratio than that.

This is not only a big step for Evan, but a huge step for me too.  I already started crying during our meeting at Open House.  I'm sure I'll be a blubbering mess on Monday morning.  But I know this will be such a great experience for Evan.  We also felt by starting him now rather than after the baby is born we can prevent Evan from feeling like he's being pushed out because of the baby.  We wanted him to feel like this new experience is solely for him and for no other reason.  Of course we also had no choice but to start him now unless we wanted to give up his spot and that was definitely not gonna happen.

I actually feel like I'm the one starting school on Monday.  I'm excited, but nervous and feel completely unprepared.  I'm praying my follow-up posting to this will be a sane one - I guess we'll just have to wait and see.