rock-a-bye

Summer is almost over and BOTH my boys will be going to school ALL DAY for the very first time. Ashtyn is going into first grade and so we knew he would be starting all day school this year but it was a surprise that Maddox would be attending all day. Up until this year, our city has only offered half day kindergarten and so when I enrolled Maddox months ago we signed him up for morning kindergarten assuming, by the very fact that we had to choose AM or PM classes, meant that Maddox would be only going to school half day. We were shocked, though, to find out just before the end of the school year in May that our district had made the decision to make Kindergarten all day effective immediately! Wow! I was shocked, to say the least...I was actually quite overwhelmed and maybe just a teeny tiny bit FRANTIC!! Ha!! I don't want my babies to grow up and I certainly don't want them to grow up any faster then I've already prepared myself for!! So...with only a week and a half left of summer and before we have to put the kids to bed super early so that we can get up super early I have been soaking up every last evening I can holding my 50lb baby as he falls asleep for the night wrapped in his "banky" (as he still calls it) and as I doze off too. This is me and my youngest baby cuddled on the sofa over the weekend. Tonight, though, we tried to start getting back into a back-to-school routine of sorts and put the boys in bed just before 8PM with no movies and no extra snacks, drinks or bathroom breaks. Let's just say...it was rough! After I described the new bedtime routine Ashtyn burst into tears! I couldn't figure out, at first, why he was crying so hard until he was laying in his bed and I asked, again, why he was so upset. He looked up at me, rubbing his eyes and sucking in air as his bottom lip shivered and said "I'm going to miss you when I go to school..." Oh my goodness! My heart broke into a thousand pieces! I wanted to say "you don't have to go to school!!" but of course I couldn't. I rubbed his little forehead and told him how much he was going to love school and all the new things he would learn. I told him how much he would love his teacher, that he would get to learn math (which he LOVES) and that he would make new friends.  Ash eventually calmed down, rolled over and went to sleep. Maddox, on the other hand, wasn't about to take the new bedtime routine "lying down"...pun intended! He wiggled and squirmed and screamed "MAMA! MAMA!" over and over. I started out the night walking back and checking on him every five minutes but eventually tried just ignoring his calls because every time he would see me he would burst into a fit and the entire fight would start over. After over an hour, of listening to Maddox scream and cry (and after he woke his brother up...) I eventually went back into the bedroom, sat next to Maddox's bed on the floor and rubbed his back as he fell fast asleep. I know that in some way he "won", as Brandon would say, because he eventually got me to sit with him while he fell asleep...but I still feel like I didn't give in totally since Maddox wasn't allowed to get into my bed or sit with me on the sofa while he fell asleep. So, I guess it was really a night of compromise but we still made progress! I'm happy with that! Plus, I got to sit with my babies while they fell asleep and I got to listen to them breathe and snore in the quiet house. It was so sweet. Sigh. I've had a couple of moments over the summer where I've thought "how soon does school start?" but when it comes down to it I'm not ready for my baby boys to grow up and become independent. I hope they want me to sit with them while they fall asleep for many years to come...