Relief and Ramblings

What a relief!! After months of waiting, plenty of paperwork and many tears and worries we were accepted into the Elementary school we wanted. Yes, I do mean we. Lily will be going to class but our family is going to be an active part of the school. We came very close to not being accepted as an out of district family and I just didn't know what I was going to do.
Lately I've been practicing a question method. When something frustrates me or saddens me I ask the question "Will this matter in a year?" This really puts things into perspective for me. It's done a lot of calming me down and helping me to enjoy my days more.
Now back to this school thing.. I applied the question to my situation and it came down to yes, absolutely it will matter. I'm kind of tired of hearing "it's only Kindergarten." Not that I think Kindergarten is the most important school year of a child's life, but come on how could someone not take this year seriously?!?! It sets a tone, will they enjoy school? Will they hate it? Will they get started off right? Will they have learning troubles? So many questions, so many things could happen. It isn't to say that anything stays the way it does after this first year, but seriously I think it's incredibly important. It's also the first time we send our kids away from us everyday for long periods of time, don't you think it's important for you and your child to feel comfortable with where they are going?!?!
As far as schools in the area go, I'm so happy to be able to send Lily to the one we picked. Beautiful facilities, nice area, very active PTO, excellent testing scores, quality full time teachers and more. The best part is that now that she is accepted, she stays in and we don't have to go through the process in future years.

So here we are, 2 weeks out from Kindergarten for my one and only baby! You can pretty much count on a post full of tears coming about that when it happens. School shopping done (and the girl looks beautiful in a uniform,) supplies ready, soccer equipment purchased. We have open house coming up in a week and tomorrow morning we find out tomorrow morning which teacher she will have. I don't know them very well so it won't matter quite so much to me but it's still exciting. Ok, so I won't get into much more here because as I mentioned there will be much more to say on this soon.
Lily is about to have her last week of out of town summer fun. She has 3 days in Kalamazoo with her Big Papa Fran and T and then Grandma. When she comes back we have a night at home and then a weekend of camping with my family. I've been looking forward to this for a few weeks. A few more groceries for the weekend and we will be all set. I haven't been camping (except for Girl Scouts) in I can't even remember how many years. Wish us luck!!!