First Day of School

DD has been at school now for 30 minutes.

I woke DD up at about 6:50 a.m. She got up right away. I carried her downstairs and set her on the couch where her little brother was waiting for her.

I made breakfast, and gave it to them.

Both kids enthusiastically assisted with the transfer of the fish from their temporary home back to the plastic fishy bags that came from the pet store.

I get dressed. Hubby notes that we had better get DD dressed. It was fast approaching 8:00 a.m. Got DD dressed, and she's just starting to show signs of stress. I grab her shoes, and she tells me she wants to put them on herself. (Neat) I head of to put stuff in the car, and the full panic attack hits. And DS starts to get into the act, too. While hubby bolts the door to keep DS inside, DD bolts upstairs and locks herself in her room, screaming. I go right up behind her and unlock the door. A surprised girl then screams some more and crawls into her closet. I gently extract her, trying to gently reassure her. I start to walk with her, and she tells me that she will walk herself. (Again, impressive!) I ask her if she will walk herself. She gets down and does so. DD then needs to go to the bathroom. I wait for her to do so, with a real urgency to get out the door for DS's sake, as he has entered full panic mode at this point. DD finishes, and we head out the door. I clip her in and hand her the fish. We drive. DD self talks all the way. She processes the bathroom (she never used the bathroom on her own at her former school) She wants to identify a friend to inform if she needs to call me to help her in the bathroom. I remind her that if she has to go, she just goes. She processes this, saying that she'll go right when she gets there, right before every class, and before going out for recess. She adds here and there that she'll go if her pull-up leaks. Yep, she insisted on wearing a pull-up today. I reminded her that she shouldn't need to use it, it's just there for reassurance. And so forth. She actually said at one point that she doesn't know why she gets nervous. I took that opportunity to remind her that sometimes people with a lot of anxiety see low-stress situations as being very threatening until we become familiar with them. Etc. I was really impressed with her processing. She did have a panic attack, but then faced the situation maturely (she is only 6 years old!) and faced it like the brave warrior that she is.

We arrived. One of the teachers is waiting on the curb (forget her name - damn!) and greets us. Immediately DD's head teacher is there, and greets DD in her mellow style. She delves right in to talking about the fish (awesome) and asks DD about their names. DD answers her confidently. (Atta girl!!) Teacher says bye to me, and I drive away. I watch as DD walks with the teacher. DD carries her back pack (which I said was empty but isn't - it has her lunch. Shoot - hope she finds it!) Teacher carries her heavy bag of school supplies. She glanced at it with a slightly surprised look (hey, it's only stuff they said they require!) and carried that in for DD.

And so. I stopped at the Y as planned, and went home. And found that hubby and DS were gone. Hm. I predicted that DS was so upset that hubby didn't know what else to do with him but drive. I called him, and that's basically what transpired. They returned a minute later. Both were calm. I hugged DS and talked to him a little bit about the morning, and said that we were all nervous this morning, but we're all ok now. He said he was ok. I got hubby up to speed with the drop-off, and he left for work.

So now I watch the clock a little, write this, spend time with DS, and try to have awareness of my own tension. (I feel exhausted, slightly pre-headachey, and anxious to have the day be done) But I move forward. DS wants to play computer games, so that's what we'll do. Then DD's best friend's mom invited me and DS to go meet her and her kids for a picnic at a local park. So we'll plan to go do that. And we'll go from there.

Breathe in, breathe out. Love you, sweetheart. And thinking of you nonstop.