Balancing Needs

Yesterday was my day to spend with Morgan, getting her ready for Kindergarten. This weekend, Lance has been sanding and painting an old desk that we had, getting it ready to move into Morgan's room. He has taken her school shopping to buy stuff like notebooks, pencils, markers, etc to go in her new desk. She has no idea this desk even exists and is going to be really surprised when she gets home and sees it in her room. In fact, right now, I bet she's picking out a chair to go with the desk that she doesn't even know is in her room. I'm so excited to see her face!

This is all very exciting for us, but I'm starting to gather that it's really stressing her out. She nearly had a breakdown when Lance told her that he was going to take her shopping. She said she wants to keep things like they are now. No school. She wants to just do things like go to see movies or go to museums. Just fun stuff.

I think this all stems from us telling her that we're going to have to practice getting up and going in the morning because she can't be late for school. It's not like preschool where you have an hour and a half window of time to get them there. School starts at 8:10 and you need to be there by then, or else there may be ramifications. She's not real keen on that part of school. I suspect we'll have the same battles over homework this year. But you know what? At least she'll have a dedicated place, where Bennett isn't allowed to go, to do her homework.

Maybe we've made a mistake by putting too much emphasis on starting school. We've had the whole summer of meeting kids that she'll be going to school with, we've started talking about schedules and routines and after a summer of nothing but non-stop fun, who can blame her? I'm trying to balance her need to soak things in before school starts, my need to prepare our house and schedules, and also trying to keep things positive and fun. This is actually a lot harder than it sounds.

I'm hoping that she'll have so much fun at the back-to-school barbeque this Friday that she won't be able to wait for school to start. They'll be having a cake walk and water slide and all kinds of fun stuff. I think that's what she needs to see right now. Because all Kindergarten sounds like to her at the moment is rules and structure and then end of fun.