3 Things I’ve Learned from My Son’s First Day of Kindergarten

Well, it finally arrived. Yesterday was my son’s first day of Kindergarten. While a lot of my fellow mommy-friends have posted on Facebook, Twitter and their blogs about saying a tearful farewell as their little one’s headed off to school for the first time, I have to admit that I didn’t have this same experience. In fact, I think I was just as excited about my little guy heading off to school as he was!
I know, I sound like a horrible mother don’t I? Before you judge, consider this: my son has been going to all-day school since he attended the 3-year old program at a nearby school…and he LOVES school. My son is pretty outgoing and makes friends easily, and he was excited to get to go back to school and see all his friends again. How can I be sad about that?

I did discover a few things about myself on my son’s first day of Kindergarten though. Here they are:

• Quiet time is good. I have to admit, it was a little weird coming back home and only having to care for the 1-year old. The house felt too quiet. However, as the day went on, I realized that I actually like my quiet time. While I love the heck out of my rambunctious 5-year old, it is nice to have a quiet house, giving me the ability to think. Over the summer, I put off most of my work until after the kids had went to bed because it was nearly impossible for me to get it done when they were awake. Now, with a (mostly) quiet house, I’m able get busy as I have the quiet time I desperately need.
• Time is precious. I have a tendency to rush through my days. I’m always trying to get through one task in order to move on to the next, and I am often looking days ahead when I should be focusing on the here and now. Walking my son into his classroom on his first day of Kindergarten made me realize just how precious time is…and how much I take it for granted. It seems like just yesterday, my husband and I were taking him home from the hospital and now we’re sending him off to Kindergarten. The truth is that time flies by when you have kids and if we aren’t careful, we’re going to take it for granted and miss all of the important stuff. So, I’m determined that this year, I’m going to take one day at a time and appreciate all of the little gifts each day brings to myself and my family.
• I’m spoiled. Yep, yesterday I realized that I’m pretty spoiled. For some reason, I found it a little odd that there weren’t more parents dropping their kids off for the first day of school. I grew up with a mom who always took us to school  on the first day and was able to be at all of our events, so I guess I just assumed this is how it is for every family. Yesterday I realized that not everyone has a job where they can take their kids to school and/or pick them up afterwards. I’m not quite sure why this didn’t dawn on me before, but it did make me feel pretty spoiled. While there are a lot of things I love about my job, the ability to be there for my kids on “big” days is definitely the best perk working from home has.

Above are the three things I learned on my son’s first day of school. What has the first day of school taught you?