I officially have a child who goes to school all day. Aidan started 1st grade today, and it's another first for us. She has been gone just over one hour, and Taylor is bored to death already. It is just so strange to me that she will be gone until almost 4 p.m. every day.
We tried to fill last week up with fun activities...a last attempt at summer, I suppose, but the weather did not cooperate with us every time. Last night she took her school supplies into her classroom and we ate at Texas Roadhouse for kids' night.
I discovered something, though, during the last week. I may tend to put a little more emphasis than needed on some of these events in my kids' lives. Aidan made her case for her choice of restaurant last night because "this is the last time our family will be able to eat together at a restaurant before I start school!" Hmmmm....that's true, but I gently reminded her that we can still eat at restaurants during the school year. She wanted to go get a pedicure at a salon because she started school today. I nixed that one, too, and gave her a homemade pedi and mani last night before bed. I was a bit humored but bothered by her tendency to make a huge deal about every single thing being our last chance...and usually it involved something we needed to spend money on.
Did I do this? Have I spent my time through Aidan's life so far making a big deal about every little thing to the point that we always buy something or go somewhere every time anything happens? So that now she expects it? Hmmmm. Maybe. I have not fully thought this through yet, but it's something worth considering.
That is not to say that I want anything that happens in my children's lives to be considered just another day. The first day of school IS important, but she will have a bunch of them.
I guess what I started thinking about was that while I've tried to make the best of the last part of summer and do special things, I want to try to just emphasize the idea of family time to my kids more than family time that includes special events. It needs to be enough--no, more than that--it needs to be special that our family can hang out and have fun the night before school starts, even if that night does not include a restaurant, a movie, or something else similar. My kids will be able to appreciate that later in life rather than just appreciating the event. I hope. :)
