First Monday back in Wilmore (by Cydil)

Ellie and her new teacher, Mrs. B

It's Day 5 and I declare jet lag officially conquered! I slept later than 5AM for the first time, sleeping in this morning til a whopping 7:00AM. I have to say, traveling with a child is SO much harder to recover from because apparently those hours of missed napping during flights makes a BIG difference. Ellie bounced back much more quickly than I, surprise, surprise!

Nevertheless it's five days home and I can finally see my kitchen table and countertop again. I knew I would have a mountain of mail to comb through, but really. Even after opening and sorting all that mail (and filling an entire kitchen trash can with junk mail and catalogs alone), I had a new list of tasks to complete. Now it feels good to have those bills paid, thank you notes written, phone calls returned, and school supplies purchased. I've also been busy scheduling medical appointments for David Reni and rescheduling some appointments for Nathan due to his delayed return. A new dryer was delivered and installed this morning and yesterday I met with new possible tenants for our duplex. No, life does not stop when you leave home.

Ellie and I are getting ready for the Big Day (Wednesday). On Friday night we visited her new school. The parking lot was a mad house and the school was swarming with hundreds of lost and confused families navigating a new school building (the entire Early Learning Village moved from Wilmore to Nicholasville over the summer). We found help at the nurses station (Ellie found the idea of a "doctor's office" at school completely fascinating, promising the nurse she would come in and lay down on one of the beds when she came back to school). We were shown a map of the building and instructed to look for the blue floor tiles and wall stripes to know we were in the right "pod."

I have to say, we feel so blessed with Ellie's school situation. True to their word, Ellie's pre-school team was able to have their room situated next to Ellie's Kindergarten classroom so they will be close by should her new teaching team need their help in Ellie's transition. (If you saw the size of the school, you would understand how remarkable this is). I still think it's pretty incredible that they would go to such lengths for Ellie -- especially when she wasn't the only student in her former class with special learning needs. This afternoon Ellie's new teacher, Mrs. B, and her new special ed teacher, Mrs. M, visited our home so Ellie could see them again. I've been given all kinds of information about ways in which kindergarten is going to be different than pre-school and feel like I will easily be able to communicate any concerns I have with her teachers.

Thankfully they understand that Ellie is in the middle of a lot of transition right now, both at school and at home. I think it's probably good that this switch to all day kindergarten is starting before bringing David Reni home. I've been vacillating back and forth about this change to all day school for Ellie. After witnessing the learning and growth that took place during our five weeks in Albania, I felt sad about sending her to school and missing her for 8 hours each day. I must admit though, that I then came home and felt the weight of work and began to think of what I could do in those 8 hours and a bit of that sadness dissipated. Overall, I'm beginning to better understand why parents struggle with sending their kids to school.

Today is a "double poster" so scroll down to read Nathan's account of his day in Albania!