Washington recently made kindergarten all day. On top of that the school down the street was so full they had to move the kindergarten classes to another school about 25 minutes away. This leaves us at the bus stop at 8:10am and she gets home at 4:10pm. She is gone 8 hours a day. I went from having her by my side 24/7 literally, since, she sneaks in bed with us every night, to seeing her for an hour in the morning and 4 hours after school. I try to move on and not think about it because when I do I tend to get upset and emotional about it.
The blessings I have seen from her going to school really have been sweet. I'm not one to make a schedule and stick to it if there isn't a real commitment to help me so now we are really scheduled and I like it. I like getting ready in the morning even if it is thrown together. After we drop her off at the bus I take walt to preschool that is pretty much next door to Olivia's school. I'm always driving past her school and on Wednesdays I even get to creep on her and watch her play at recess! While Walt is at school I get to help her teacher a little and then spend time with Olivia at lunch. Having just Ellanore twice a week for 4 hours has been a dream! Getting things done with one child is amazing! I love Olivia but she does make things harder. Example: we went to a pumpkin patch and no one was crying that they were hungry and no one was crying at me just because... she sets the example and the others follow along so usually this trip would have had 3 kids crying that they were hungry but instead we played and had a great time! (I did have major mom guilt so we went back the next week with her and it wasn't as easy but we still had a great time!) On the days walt doesn't go to preschool we drop Olivia off at the bus stop then go on a 2.5 mile walk. I would like to work out more but this has been something I have really enjoyed and our neighborhood is full of steep hills so it really gets my legs burning and my heart pounding pushing a heavy stroller up and down the hills. Another blessing has been bed time. The kids are going to sleep around 8:30 and it's been wonderful to have a minute to breath before bed. Anyways, the blessings go on and on and I'm grateful.
I'm trying to create good routines like devotional in the morning, reading books with Olivia after school, I hide my phone so I can give Olivia all my attention for the short time I have with her after school, and I love planning my week. Routines have been really great for us. My heart aches that I have lost a huge chunck of my day with her and my influence is limited. My time with her now has to be meaningful. It is all so hard but I have seen blessings so I will continue on and leave it in the Lords hands and follow his plan. I know we are where we need to be and this will make us stronger and closer to Heavenly Father.
Olivia likes her teacher a lot. All the kindergarten classes have the cutest mascots except Olivia... her class mascot is a Seahawk hahaha!! I was about in tears the first time she told Michael "go Seahawks!!" Michael reminds her every time she points out a Seahawk (and that's about every other car and ever other house Haha! People from Seattle are huge Seahawks fans) that we are bronco fans haha!!
This last week was hard for Olivia. She gets really upset about thunderstorms. Every morning her class discusses the weather for the day and the following day so when her teacher told her there was thunderstorms in the forecast she was so anxious. Later that day there was an unexpected fire drill and she later told me she wanted to cry but she didn't. That nigh she kept asking to stay home she wanted to stay home with me so I could hold her. We talked about the weather and suggest that she ask Michael for a blessing. We said lots of prayers for her and she finally fell asleep. The next morning we moved slow and checked the weather, it was way too cold to have a thunderstorm and it finally came off the forecast. We dropped off walt at school then I took her to breakfast at chick fil a. We talked and giggled then we went to school. On our way i asked how she was feeling and she told me "I had a blessing and we said prayers so I am feeling a lot better." I love her testimony! I also love how walt remembered to pray for her!
