School Days…

This has been a very big week for Bryson.  We have taken a leap and joined the countless number of children with perpetual snotty noses and every item of clothing labeled with a laundry pen.  Yes, Bryson started “school” this week. 

Call it denial, but I refuse to use the “D” word. 

Up until now, we have been piecing our childcare together with help from my sister and my mom.  But as Bryson has gotten to be more active, that option just isn’t very feasible anymore.  He is just so busy! And he really demands a lot of your attention.  So when then opportunity came to start him at a local pre-school (after being on the waiting list for 14 months), we decided to sign little Bee up. 

I have been dealing with an incredible amount of guilt around this topic.  I know that once he gets over the whole “I miss my parents” thing, Bryson will love the enrichment and playing with all of the other children.  But the thought of him crying when we drop him off breaks my heart.  He is so attached to us- especially Dave.  And I know that he doesn’t understand…

And then you add in to it the whole fear of him accidentally getting something with nuts or having some kind of breathing problem. No one is going to be as careful about the whole nuts things as me and Dave. 

Needless to say, we have all been a bit distracted with the whole ordeal.

According to Dave, the “drop off” on first day was absolutely horrible.  I am so glad that I wasn’t there to witness it, because I don’t think I would have made it out the door alone.  Bryson’s pleads for his daddy to “please no go” would have broken me.  Sadly, on his first day I was scrubbed in the operating room literally ALL DAY, so I wasn’t even able to call and check on how things were going. 

————————————————————————————————

On a much more “fun” note here are some pictures from our recent family vacation in April.  We went to Venice Beach for a week with my parents, Dave’s parents and my sister’s family.  The house we rented was a funky yellow house, straight out of the 60’s.  There was plenty of space for everyone though and it had its own swimming pool, which was very nice. 

What’s a family vacation without being all crammed into the back of a car.  Someone’s always hot, someone else is cold, someone has to go to the bathroom…  I’m hungry.  And are we there yet???  This time around, my dad rented a 15 passenger bus (which we affectionately titled the Church Bus) so we could all ride around together in style.  Ahhh family…

While we were there, we went swimming and found nearly a hundred sharks teeth out in the water.  According to the local folks, the teeth are pre-historic and in such high numbers because of an old coral reef which is slowly being broken down by the surf.  I still was a bit trepidatious about swimming given the outstanding number of sharks teeth.  You just never know what might have been lurking in that water

While in Florida we decided to spend one of our days at Busch Gardens.  Bryson especially loved the children’s park.  Here we are riding in a Dinosaur Egg “Ferris Wheel”.

We also took a boat ride at a state park to see alligators.  Despite his efforts to jump of the boat and be “gator bait” Bryson made it through the ride and we all enjoyed seeing 10+ alligators out in the marshes.  Yikes!

————————————————————————————————