Ch-ch-ch-changes

The boy started kindergarten last week.  Here in our town, everyone goes to kindergarten all day, every day.  The only option for half-day happens to be at his school, but we thought that all day every day school would be good for him.  He tends to find trouble when he's not occupied, and since he's reading like a freaking nine-year old, we were happy to be able to send him to a stimulating environment 5 days per week.

It's gone well.  We are so happy with our choice of schools, and he seems to really like it as well.  So far we really can't complain or wish for anything better for him (except the clique-y PTA, but that's quite another story).  He's handled the transition pretty well, and aside from being so tired that he walks around resembling a drunk in the evenings, he loves school.

The transition to having a school-aged child has been a little difficult and surprising for me.  I realized this week that I really have not much of an idea what's going on during the day with my boy.  We rely on his stories and any communication from his teacher to let us know what (and how) he's doing.  We're quickly learning that he's not the most accurate of historians, and of course we don't get a daily rundown of his every moment from his teacher.  That's fine - I don't really expect that.  But it's hard to make that leap.  Harder than I thought it would be.

The other thing we're trying to figure out and manage as best we can is the absolute exhaustion brought on by school.  A has always been one that requires a significant amount of sleep, and school requires an early wake-up time.  I figure he goes full-tilt all day long, and when he finally returns home at the end of the day he is noticeably wiped out, and usually quite irritable.  So we've bent our usually strict rules on TV watching, and we send him outside frequently because as long as he stays really busy he isn't consumed with how tired he is.  We let him watch stupid cartoons and do far more vegging than previously.  Perhaps it's not the best strategy, but right now we're just trying to adjust and get by.  We play sleep catch-up on the weekends and try to keep the schedule low-key.

And that's what's happening here.  We're head-long back into the school schedule, and while at some point this week I felt certain it would completely kick my a**, we're managing.  More changes are coming - a new office for D, perhaps a new house for the 4 of us.  It's 10 shades of crazy around here.