Empty Nest part two.

I dropped Cole off at school. His teacher wouldn't make eye contact, but this is understandable, as I try to avoid crazies, stinky, and/or turrets syndrome victims, as well. On the way there, Cole was unusually quiet...I decided to turn the radio off and give him some sound words of advice: Listen to your teacher, don't talk when she's talking, and you'll have so much fun and meet so many friends and...he took a deep breath, and said, "Pinky Swear, Mom"? I was kind of caught off guard as to where he'd heard this. I have said it to Riley a couple of times when we'd talked about serious stuff, and I had promised her it would be okay, but apparently he understood this to be one of those situations. So I smiled and kind of laughed and said, "absolutely, pinky swear". He goes, "uh mom? I don't know the one which is my pinky". I held mine up and explained that it's the smallest finger. I reached behind the seat and felt his little finger grab mine. "Is that right?" he asked. I told him he did it perfectly, and in that moment, found it possible to love my son even more.
We got to the school, and we walked in. Today being Wednesday, is their short day. Every year it changes, as do the hours of school time, and this is annoying to me, but I'm guessing that no one really cares about my opinion. So today they went to school fifteen minutes early and got out forty-five minutes early. (It will only take me two-thirds of the year to get this down).
Cole led me to his classroom. As he's been there two times, he knows exactly how to get there--I honestly am always so impressed with his sense of direction. I took him in and had him find his table, and of course, it was the last one we looked at. But he did well in recognizing his name, and sat down, appreciating the crayon box in front of him. There were only like, five kids there, and I was confused as to why, as we were only two minutes early. (Riley informed me later that the buses, the REASON why we have to always have weird scheduled days, were running late). I also noticed that there were no boys at his table...the only one set up this way. I guess it makes sense that Cole will be comfortable like this because he's very used to being around the female gender, but I guess I was a little concerned that there were no other kids at his table. I was kind of sad that he would feel lonely, as Riley and I both would. But then again, Cole is Jeff's son...not only biologically, obviously, but they have a lot of the same personality quirks. Where Riley and I get lonely easily, they are just fine being alone and in their own worlds. It's hard for me to understand, but Jeff has clued me in that this just is, and to deal and accept. As I looked around, there were other parents there, some with video cameras. All of us had that same concerned look on our faces. Trying to get in that private moment where we tell our little ones that we love them, and remind them that they are fabulous, and they'll have so much fun, and to behave. Then it was time for me to go...His teacher had said to the other four kids there that it was time to start--a clever way to tell the lingering parents to leave, and avoid eye-contact with me at the same time. By this time she'd passed out Play-Doh to all the kids and Cole wasn't even interested in me anyway, so I reluctantly left him there at that big circle table, all alone.
Then I had two and a half hours all to myself. How did I fill it? I guess the way I usually do, however, I have had to run both the dishwasher and the washer and dryer to provide the usual background noise that today was so obviously missing. I checked email, filled out some sort of "check all the things you've done in your life" thing, blog-stalked those that I usually do, texted Jeff, who ignored me, just cause he was working. Whatever.
Anyway, miraculously quickly, it was time to go get the kids. I've instructed Riley to pick Cole up after school, and they will come out together, and get into the car. But today I had to go see if there were any other kids at his table. I didn't want to be lonely FOR him. As I peeked in, Cole was making himself a picture, and wearing his backpack. I'm not exactly sure as to why....seemingly how his teacher made him put it in his cubby when he got there. But he was wearing it, unzipped, and finishing some art masterpiece that had to stay there and dry. I watched from the hallway like some kind of creepy peeping tom, occasionally snapping pictures with my new phone--which coincidentally, worked better on those far away pictures than my nice camera. No shakage. Can I just say how much I love my Blackberry? It's fabulous.
I watched him for the last minute or so, before the bell rang. Cole was taught by Riley the importance of raising your hand before talking to the teacher, so I noticed that at least twice he'd be needing to ask a question, and would just stand there, raising his hand, staring at his teacher, while she was otherwise occupied. Yeah, he's going to be THAT kid. But I guess it's better than the one that yells, "TEACHER, TEACHER!" until looked at. There were a couple of those, too.
The bell rang, and Cole came bounding out, his first words being, "I liked it, mom!" And just like that, I relaxed. I didn't even know how stressed I'd been-and I'm an overexaggerater in all things, so you know it was substantial. We waited for Riley and then all walked to the car together. They both had a good day, Riley found out that a boy named Alex, not the one that I know from her previous class, but a blond one, the one that had been staring at her since the first day, is in love with her. (Of course). And Ashlyn is her new best friend. So, not a bad day at all for her. Cole told Riley that his favorite part of school was the "park", (playground), and Riley apologized to Cole that they couldn't have recess together. (Awwww...) We got out of the car, and Cole showed me the inside of his backpack, because if there's one thing I learned from Riley going to Kindergarten is that you don't just ask your kids if they have anything in it, you look yourself and you will find at least three things they need to do that they had, "no idea", were in there. We had a snack...and I'd like to say that this was mainly because the kids were hungry, but no, it's because I was. And then, out of the blue, Cole gets a panicky/angry look on his face, and says, "Mom! You didn't tell me da truth!" I asked what he was talking about and he goes: "You telled me that school was going to be a short time, and I was there for a hundreds hours!" I told him he was there for only two and a half hours, actually, and that that's how many hours he'll be there each day. "EACH DAY? I didn't say I wanted thaaaaat! Now I can't watch my movies!" (You're right Keri. With Cole, I'm definitely seeing the benefits of the home school option).