An Emotional Few Days

The day after we arrived I took the kids into Hannah' s school to register her.  We found out we were at the wrong school.  And kindergarten here is all day (8-3). We got to the correct school, which is almost a mile and a half away, and got all registered.  Since it's too far to walk, we can drop her off and pick her up every day or have her ride the bus.  The bus would pick her up at 7:00 and drop her off at 3:45 pm.  YIKES!!!!!!!!!!  A LONG day for a 5 year old.

It was an overwhelming experience getting her registered.  I had no clue what I was doing (making decisions about how to get to school, what to have for lunch, etc.....)....I hadn't planned on these decisions because we were close enough we were going to walk to school and I hadn't planned on her needing a lunch in the first place since it was supposed to be half day.  Not to mention Sofia, TJ and Hannah were all bored to death by the time we were at school #2.

To top it all of, they informed me the school is overcrowded and as soon as they find another school that has open spots, she will be transferred to another school.  Oh, and school started on August 5th - over a month ago. 

Okay.  

So, she's taking her own lunch and we're dropping her off/picking her up for the 1st week to see how things go.

Here she is on her 1st day:

She was very excited about school.  A little nervous, but mostly excited.  I wasn't worried about her. I actually laughed when her doctor at a checkup asked me if I was worried about separation anxiety. Definitely wasn't worried about that.  She ran to nursery at 16 months and went happily off to Preschool in Turkey where she couldn't understand a word.  Never had a problem, so I wasn't concerned.

Unfortunately, all day is a little long.  And she had to wait a long time for us to pick her up.  I showed up a few minutes early to make sure I was there to be one of the first people to get her.  But....the pick up zone is about a 20-30 minute process.  YIKES!!  By the time we got to where we could get her, she had lost it and was crying. 

Day 2 I decided to arrive 10 minutes early...it took almost 30 minutes and she was hysterical by the time I got to her.

Day 3 I arrived 20 minutes early and it still took 30 minutes.

Let's just say, I personally think 5 year old kids should not spend so much time at school.  They are too little.  They shouldn't be eating breakfast and lunch at school.  And, the pick-up shouldn't take 30 minutes.

Did I mention that she has used some new vocabulary (like butt, but head, etc...) after just 1 day of school?  Really?  Just 1 day and she's already learning bad stuff!!!

But nobody asked me.  And I don't know what I can do to change anything.  

So, she's slowly adjusting to being gone all day (she still doesn't like it - but it's getting better).  And we are getting accustomed to totally messing up TJ's nap schedule, strapping him and Sofia into car seats lots of times in a given day, and wasting lots of gas and time in line at the school.  I feel like a crummy mom because she shouldn't be at school so long, but I don't know how to change that and I feel like all I do all day long is strap kids in and out of car seats. 

But, it's just for a time.  My incentive to find a home is getting bigger.  And my number one concern is now something walking distance from a school!!