Lucas starts school tomorrow!

We decided a few weeks ago to make a HUGE change with our family and enroll Lucas in a Montessori school five days a week from 8:30-4:30. Working from home with a nanny worked for us for about 22 months. I think it got significantly more difficult this winter because Lucas and the nanny had to stay indoors so much. Other things that contributed to the nanny not working anymore was that Lucas became aware that we were working from home. There would be times when Jeff or I would be on a call and Lucas would be banging on our office door because he wanted to play - that sucked! I felt so horrible for him during those moments. And finally his nap schedule is changing. He used to sleep very reliably from 1pm -4pm. Lately that has changed and he'll stay up until 2pm or wake up at 3pm, which made it very difficult to balance with work. I got into a habit of working 2 hours each night after he went to sleep, which made it feel like I had not down time and no time with Jeff.

We had visited this school in January because we knew we were interested and thought it may be a good fit for us someday. On our drive back from Atlanta on Easter weekend I told Jeff that I was dreading Monday morning and the routine that we currently had setup. We decided to call the school on Monday to see if they had openings. It was like it was meant to be - they had 4 openings, but 5 interviews setup that week... and they ended up filling up that week! We decided that Lucas's first day would be in two weeks on April 14th.

For the last two weeks we have really played up school. We got the names of the other kids from the teacher and talked about them constantly. Anytime we'd mention school he'd say, "Nemo!" because Nemo goes to school and there is a scene in the beginning where he wakes up and says, "First day of school! First day of school!"

Lucas really doesn't know what he has in store for him tomorrow, but I am pretty nervous about it. I told the teacher that I can be available to pick him up anytime during the day, thinking that maybe he'll need a week of 2-3 hours a day to transition. She told me that that would just make the 2nd week harder, so we'd try to make it through the day. I guess I'm most worried about nap time since he still nurses to sleep. The teacher assured me that it will be okay, so I am trying to think positively. I'll update on how tomorrow goes as soon as I can - wish us luck!