School Days

I officially have two children in school all day, every day. It makes me a little bit sad. It is the first time in 11 years that I haven't had someone to take care of during the day.
Kyle started kindergarten last Thursday. He did really well. Friday was his first full day of school and he already had one of his "colors" taken away for talking. Surprise surprise :) He doesn't know many kids in his class, which is probably a blessing right now. It will give him a chance to learn the rules and what is expected of him in kindergarten without having any distractions from kids he already knows. Kyle tends to be a show off when there are a lot of kids around that he is familiar with. I think the structure of a classroom will be wonderful for him. He enjoys learning and is proud of himself when he can accomplish new things. The downside for Kyle is if he can't do something. He tends to get extremely frustrated with himself and has a hard time expressing how he feels. Right now, the most he has talked about is his recess time!
David started back to school yesterday. For those that don't know, David has attended school in a different district than we are in. He has been in that district for 5 years now and is in his second school there (Jr. High!). He adores it. He has a one on one aide and this year there are only three kids in his class which I hope makes for a lot of individual attention for all three of them. He loves to be social and integrated with the rest of the school. We have been really blessed with the people that have touched our lives through David. He gets all of his services at school and is very well taken care of.
For me, all this free time is a little foreign. Michael has been off this week and goes back to work on Friday. So it will probably really hit me then. I will miss the conversations that I have with Kyle. One never knows what we will be talking about on an hour to hour basis. I will miss David needing me. I feel good when I am needed by him.  I won't miss taking Kyle to work with me and having him be hungry, thirsty, or bored every time Spongebob goes on commercial. I'm pretty sure I won't miss taking David there with me either. He is an angel there 99% of the time, but the flight of stairs that I have to carry him up to the office seems miles long while he's in my arms. I'm glad that my children are both in environments that are helping them learn. They are on different paths in life, but are both acquiring valuable lessons. Having both boys in school is also helping me learn to appreciate the "me" time in my life now. I am hoping to acquire valuable lessons myself.
So here's to a great school year with a lot of learning for all involved!

Times Like These

Today on the way home from Champaign I heard David laughing hysterically in the back seat. When I looked, I saw Kyle waving David's arm up and down against the arm on his booster seat. I THOUGHT Kyle was playing with David. Instead Kyle was upset that David was laughing and not crying. He was actually trying to hurt David! Now, I know that seems wrong. It IS wrong. But it is something that brothers actually do. He told us David was swinging his arms around and hit him in the head and it hurt him. So I guess he was trying to get him back and because of David's extreme tolerance to pain, David thought he was playing with him and thought it was funny.

Michael just told Kyle that David doesn't understand these kinds of things. That's when the waterworks started. Kyle let loose, wailing "BUT I WAAANNNNNNTTTTTT HIM TO UNDERSTAND!" The next words were "AND I DIDN'T WANT GOD TO MAKE HIM DIFFERENT!" It was heartbreaking. How do you find the words at times like these to explain to a 5 year old that sometimes life is just HARD? And we can't control what is being thrown at us?

Most of the time Kyle just goes with the flow. We try to get him involved in activities with other kids and he just started soccer. By no means is he lacking in that department. In fact, sometimes I think I try to do too much with him just because I don't want him to feel like he can't do things because of his brother. But the fact of the matter is that sometimes we can't do things because of David. We really wanted to go to Ruby Falls one year on our drive home from SC, but they weren't handicap accessible. We can't go on a bike ride as a family because of David. We aren't able to just hop in the car and be footloose and fancy free because of David. Those are just a few of the things we just CAN'T do. But there are plenty of things we CAN do as well. Until today, I never realized that Kyle really understood the severity of David's disabilities. It makes me sad.

After about 10 minutes of being upset, Kyle was fine. He didn't bring it up again at all. So we'll just leave it alone for now. As he gets older, he'll have more questions that we probably won't have an answer to. Right now, I'm just going to think of our conversation from the other day. Kyle said to me- "You know that David is really special, right?" Of course I told him yes. Then he said- "You know that I'm pretty special too, right? You know why? Cause I can run really fast." I'm so glad that he knows that they are both VERY special little boys!