Back to School

The River Valley Waldorf School’s Winter Break is over, and today is the boys’ first day back to school. Owen was ambivalent about going back to school, but Kyle was very excited about it. They were both, however, very excited to wear their “I’m going to be a Big Brother” shirts to school today. These are now their favorite clothing items of choice. They’d wear them 24×7 if they could. Kyle, especially, just couldn’t wait to get dressed this morning. From the time he woke up until Braydon drove off with them 10 minutes ago, Kyle kept saying to me, “Mommy, I can’t wait to go to school!” We couldn’t tell how much of his excitement was about school vs. how much of his excitement was about the shirt. About 1/2 hour before the boys had to head out Kyle started saying “I don’t want to wear my coat today.” He’s never done this before. It is supposed to be in the 50s today, but still… he has to wear his coat. I kept saying, “Well, you have to wear it.” He’d say, “But why??? I don’t want to wear my coat. Please no coat?” Finally it dawned on me… I said, “Ky Ky, do you want no coat because you want to walk through the whole school to your classroom so that everyone can see your shirt?!” Huge grin on his face, he shouted “YES! YES! Please? So please?!” Braydon agreed that he would carry Kyle’s coat for him so that Kyle could walk into school loud-and-proud with his big-announcement-shirt. From then on Kyle was dancing all around the house singing “I love school, I love baby sister, I love school, I love baby sister, I can’t wait for school, I can’t wait for baby sister, baby sister is coming after my birthday.” At one point he interrupted this song and dance to say, “Hey, I have an idea! When it is my birthday, I can share my birthday presents with my baby sister!!!” This, for Kyle, who is the ultimate-lover-of-birthday-and-supreme-lover-of-presents, was kind of huge. Braydon and I looked at each other in total shock. “No, sweetie,” I said, “when it is your birthday your presents are going to be just for you.” He lit up with delight, “O.k.!” He said. “I have an even better idea! How about Baby Sister can have her own birthday??!!!!” I said, “Yes! She’ll have her own birthday!” Then he continued on with the very animated song and dance until it was time to go. Owen, of course, jumped right on the no-coat-boat with his brother and wanted nothing to do with wearing anything that might cover up his special shirt. I can only imagine the stories Braydon will be telling when he gets back from dropping them off!