Into Kindergarten: Lunch Box Notes

Jane started Kindergarten in August. I did not have the mega emotional reaction that I did when she started preschool three years ago. That was three hours twice a week, and now we're talking almost seven hours five days a week. She was ready, and I was too. She's already learned so much in the first ~eight weeks.

Waking up in the mornings and getting ready -- out the door by 7:20, maybe 7:25 at the latest -- has proven very challenging. Even with a uniform and not really much to do (potty, brush teeth, eat breakfast, get dressed, sunblock, shoes and grab backpack) she makes it take forever with grumpiness. We have her alarm set at 6:14 to give her a full hour to get up and together. It's still sometimes a photo finish!

Jane's school has a cafeteria, but it's like a mini college dining hall in that you have to pay for a full semester or year meal plan. You can't look at the menu and decide to eat 3 of 5 days or even week by week or month by month. We talked about it and decided to pack lunches -- Jane was definitely part of that decision. She was so mad on her first day when many other kids got a hot dog and she had to eat a sandwich.

But since I'm packing her lunch every day I'm also including a small drawing and note. I've had a lot of fun drawing things and looking at YouTube videos to learn new sketches. I'm not an artist, but I am a copy cat -- I can sketch simple drawings by looking at them. (Kind of like how I can copy cat things in crochet!) My favorite YouTube channel so far is called Draw So Cute, and I've drawn many of her things for Jane's lunch notes.

Now I have to decide how to collect those, because I'd like to have them in a little book to flip through and see how my drawings have gotten better (probably a third of the time I do something quick, which means a stick figure Jane!). Every one is dated, and right now they're just in an envelope. I draw on colored post-it notes, so I'm thinking maybe sticking them onto a bigger piece of paper in a grid then putting those in sheet protectors in a 3-ring binder? Will report back when I find a solution that works.