Everything I need to know I learned since M started Kindergarten...

1. The plastic lunch box was the way to go. What does she do to the box at lunch that I need to scour it each night?
2. Lunch? Apparently a few Goldfish crackers and a stick of string cheese are all that's needed to sustain a talkative Kindergartner.
3. Some children think it's okay to crap on the classroom floor. Thankfully, not mine.
4. My kids still bicker like an old married couple the second they are back together.
5. Waiting until my daughter turned 5 and started Kindergarten to let her get her own library card was a good move. She was big-time proud to get it.
6. It's almost more work to have only K to watch. Now, he wants me to play with him all the time, when before he had Miss M to play with. You can only play cars for so long before you start to go insane. Look at the little green man dancing in the corner!
7. I miss being able to plan fun things for M, K and I to do together during the day. I find that a lot of the things we did were more for M, because she enjoyed it. This is actually a good lesson for me to seek out and find the things that K likes to do. Although he found enthusiasm for things much of the time because M was so enthusiastic. And that's a good thing too.
8. I feel pressure to provide a nutritional lunch. Not that my child will eat it anyway (See #2). As though the teachers will be monitoring each child's lunch box and grading me in their notebooks.
9. I miss the fact that I used to "know" all the kids and parents of the kids that M was interacting with each day. Also, I used to know her teachers.
10. M told me she loves Kindergarten, but told Craig she's having trouble adjusting to learning so much stuff.
11. I assume that my daughter's teacher thinks she is as wonderful as I do, but, in truth, have no idea what my daughter's teacher thinks of her.
12. It is slightly unnerving to send my precious child into the care of strangers. I am, at the same time, proud that she is so "grown up" and, dismayed, that she doesn't need me more.
13. My daughter approaches Kindergarten with the same zest for life that she approaches everything. It's fun to see her walk into the school with the rest of the kids, looking like a big kid. It's also sad to see her walk into school with the rest of the kids, looking like a big kid.
14. Kindergarten should be called "germ garden" since M didn't make it even a full week without the barfs. This is a child who is VERY rarely sick.
15. Don't assume that a Kindergartner has no credit because you haven't deposited money into her lunch account. Miss M brought home a $6.05 bill from the lunch room because she's been drinking who knows how many chocolate milks at lunch...on credit. That's some expensive milk considering she's been there, oh, 6 days. Milk is expensive anyway, but when I'm sending a juice box and then she's buying milk too... no wonder most of the food I've sent comes back home...she's having liquid lunch.