I usually blog about my handmade cards but today I’m switching gears and sharing something about another aspect of my life.

On Wednesdays and Thursdays, I watch my two grandson’s ages 5 and 2 1/2. Today was the second day of kindergarten for Zen. I arrived at their house about 6 am and my daughter headed off to her 12 hour shift as a nurse. I had to wake the boys up to get Zen to school this morning. The first words out of his mouth were, I don’t want to go to school. Last year he loved his preschool and he was looking forward to this year, so I asked why and he said his best friend Aiden wasn’t in his class this year. I told him that he was sure to make new friends, but at this point, that wasn’t helping him.

Getting him dressed was a bit of an ordeal, not normally the case. Choosing the right pants, talking him out of his night clothes and convincing him that he should wear a jacket took a bit of work. The jacket ended up in his backpack. Next, we had to find the right pair of shoes. He was so busy finding them that he forgot for a few minutes that he didn’t want to go to school.

Because of the pandemic, Zen needed to be driven to school instead of getting on the bus at the back of their yard. I admit, I was a bit nervous about getting him to the correct place even though it’s only about a mile from their house.

We got all of us into the car and the boys found some new toys that I had picked up at a garage sale. That went good until the one that Zen had didn’t work quite right. We had some pouting and tears and banging of the toy. As we waiting in line, we got the toy figured out but then Zen remembered that he really didn’t want to go to school, so he started trying to talk me out of it.

I was happy that everything was laid out pretty clearly at the school and I just followed the line of cars to the drop off spot. They had about 10 cars pull up at a time and drop off kids and then the next batch would pull up. As we pulled up to the drop of spot we were second in line.

Zen wouldn’t get out of the car. The plan was that parents (Grandma in this case) stay in the car and the kids get out. As I was cajoling Zen to get out of the car, the gym teacher came up to see what the problem was and was trying to help me. Moments later another gentleman came up to help and he was wonderful. He looked Zen in the eye and told him that he had two options, either he could walk or be carried and he had 5 seconds to choose. He took 2 seconds to decide that he would walk. He got out, put his Pokémon backpack on and walked with the teacher into the school. I turned around to see the line of cars snaking out of the parking lot, all relieved that Zen had finally gotten out of the car.

I have been having a few personal issues lately that I’ve been dealing with and when I think about what 5 year old Zen had to go through today, my issues seem much smaller. How scary to have to leave your family and go spend the entire day with strangers? We’ve all done it and survived but what a major step in life.

Zen is a quirky, sweet kid who always seem to be doing something that gets him in trouble. I don’t condone his naughtiness, but I can see how school could be very hard for him. When I watch him and his brother they are both fairly well behaved, but when Zen gets together with his cousins he always seems to be irritating someone and getting yelled at. He gets so excited and wants to interact with others but doesn’t seem to have the skill set to do that correctly.

As I wait to go pick him up at 3:30, I hope that the rest of his day went better than the beginning.