First Day of School

Yesterday was Robbie's first day of school... and it had mixed reviews. He came home telling me that he had fun, excited about getting two recesses and informing me that he saw Giselle on the playground (this is his "girlfriend" from last year that unfortunately is not in his class this year). But after filling me in with the highlights, he quickly started in on the low parts of the day. The first one was lunch. Apparently, they didn't let him finish his lunch. He's a marathon eater... so this isn't surprising. But, I'm sure he wasn't prepared for it. And like a good boy, he was saving his special treat for last... which he never got to eat. Top it off, he left his lunch box at school... so he couldn't even eat it at home. The other thing that didn't go well was that he said his teacher didn't listen to him. I tried to explain that she has 27 other kids and that he isn't going to have her complete attention, all the time. After many discussions... I'm hoping that today goes better.

I think because of the length of the day, the unexpected incidents on his part, and all the new information... when he go home, he lost it. He was explosive and it made for a very trying evening. But he and I have put plans in place to avoid a repeat - since he agreed, it was not fun.

Routines... I love them during school. So when he gets home, we will now have a light snack to refuel him. After snack, he will go to his room and do one of his word searches. This will give him some quiet time to decompress. After the word search (they normally take him about 20 minutes), he'll come down and we'll get his homework out of the way. Lucky for me... he's looking forward to homework. After homework, on some days, he'll be able to redeem some of the screen time he's earned... or he'll be going to Karate. I'm hopeful that knowing what to expect and giving him some decompression time will help. Only time will tell.

Today, to make him feel better, I packed him a special bento lunch. We had meatballs and pasta last night that Robbie loved. He asked for him again for breakfast. Luckily we had popped a few meatballs into the freezer last night. I also make this a smaller lunch than I normally do to help with time management. Hopefully he can finish this one in the time they give him.

Contents: raisins & cranberries, wheat crackers, feta cheese (in the container - he likes to use it for his pasta), edamame (lightly salted), whole wheat pasta (also lightly salted) and 4 meatballs.

He'll be taking his lunch several times a week and buying a few times a week. Friday he gets to buy and have their pizza. He's excited. I'll be doing one post a week with all of our bentos (didn't get a picture of yesterdays).