Auntie is the best

Not having children, I never understood the hubbub that usually surrounds a child's first day of school. I'm not sure if I'll ever experience that first-hand, but I think I am finally coming to realize why it is that people get so emotional about their baby leaving the house to interact with the world with out them. My nephew Alex, who is 5, left yesterday for his first day of kindergarten. I found myself thinking about him all day, wondering how he was doing and hoping that he was having a good time. And naturally I remembered the first time I laid eyes on him, the first time I held him, and I felt sad! Sad that he's no longer a baby, that he's growing up and it's happening so fast. It seems so cliche to say, but time really does fly. Before I know it he'll be a teenager and won't think I'm cool or interesting. I thought about how it made me feel, only being his aunt, and realized that it must be 10 times worse for my brother and sister-in-law. 

Maybe I felt sad because he is just the spitting image of my brother when he was little. And I always feel very protective of my brother, as if he needs protecting. Blarg, I feel so old sometimes.

Anywho, I figured things would go well and he'd meet new friends and have a good time. Until I get home from work and see that his first day was not at all what anyone expected. Apparently yesterday the Jefferson County Public School system had a major malfunction with several of it's schools and their transportation system. Come to find out my nephew did not get home from school until after 7 last night!! (I wondered why when I got off work at 5:30 I was still seeing tons of school buses still dropping kids off) Apparently some children didn't get home until as late as 9pm. Yes, 9 at night!

In Alex's case, he never got on the school bus. Why? The world may never know. Either way, he sat at the school for several more hours until someone finally decided to take him home. Apparently they had the wrong contact information for my brother, so they spent the afternoon trying to call them on the wrong damn number. And any time my sister in law would call they didn't know anything (or at least that's the impression I got.) All we know is that there was a major miscommunication about where he was supposed to go and I guess they just sat around for 4 fucking hours with their thumbs up their asses. Apparently it never occurred to them to check his backpack which had all of their contact information in it in a folder. When he finally got home no one offered an explanation, other than to say "at least he's home now." Which is all well and good, but no explanation? Never mind that no one knew where he was for hours on end and had no way of finding out where he was until someone showed up at the house. Can you imagine sitting around all afternoon worrying? I would be sick.

Hell, I am sick about it! I've been stewing about it all day. It just makes me ill. What the hell happened? When I was that young we all had signs we'd wear on us that had our contact information on it, what bus we were supposed to get on, etc. And someone was there at all times to make sure we were going where we were supposed to be going. Did they just set all the 5 year olds free to figure it out on their own? I just cannot understand how that happened. And how it happened at MANY different elementary schools all over the county. Some children were put on the wrong bus, one kid was sent to the wrong school all together and sat there all day and her mother had no idea where she was or what she was doing. Many people tried to get in contact with the schools or the bus compounds and they had no information for anyone. Other than to say "he got on a bus" and that's it. One kindergartner got dropped off at a bus stop by himself with no one waiting and the bus just left. Other children were dropped off at their homes, with no one home, instead of being sent to daycares like they were supposed to be. I just keep thinking to myself "how does this happen?" 

Apparently they were so busy shutting schools down to save money and shoving kids into already overcrowded schools that they forgot to fix the bus schedules. Or maybe make sure the bus drivers weren't fucking idiots.

And compounds, ug! Because JCPS decides to bus kids from one side of town to the other to make sure all schools are equal race-wise, some children spend hours on a bus and sometimes have to get on two buses. (instead of just being able to go to the school that is closest to their house) So they leave their school, go to a compound, get off the bus and have to find another bus to get to the other side of town. That's all fine and dandy for a middle schooler, but for a 5 year old like my nephew? Ridiculous. And I know that they'd like to be able to drive him to and from school, but that's hard to do when they only have one car and people have to be at work before he starts school for the day. 

He did finally make it home last night, but did NOT want to go back to school today. I mean, what a nice way to welcome a child into the school system. "We don't care enough about you to make sure you're not wandering in traffic, have a nice life!" They told my brother that he wasn't scared while he was there all that time, but obviously it made an impact on him. And HA! Today was not any better. He did actually make it on the bus this time, but still did not get dropped off. He apparently fell asleep on the floor of the bus and when they got to his stop they didn't see him, so they kept going. They must not have realized he was there until they got back to the compound. And naturally my brother and SIL had to spend another afternoon making frantic phone calls and not getting any answers. When I talked to my dad at 5:45 this afternoon he still wasn't home. Though I'm sure things are fine now. 

I just can't grasp how people fuck up so badly with other people's children. Though the good news is that lots of people got reprimanded for their mistakes and 2 principals of two different schools were suspended because of their massive errors. So I guess that's good. Though I'm sure they'll be reinstated soon when everyone has forgotten about the mess. At the end of the day I just hope this experience doesn't scar Alex for life. Kids are resilient and it'll probably be fine, but you know, I worry.

Anyway, here is a picture of him before school...happy and excited. Too bad they took that away from him.

In other news, I have a bit of an Ayden update. Right now things are going about as well for him as they can. He's gaining some weight, though he's still very small for a child his age. His feeding tube fell out some time ago, so he's been taking a bottle and actually eating some baby food. I haven't been able to visit lately b/c I've been too broke to spare the extra gas, but I'm hoping I can stop by some time next week since work is picking up. So I don't really know how he's looking except for this picture my SIL sent me some time last week or the week before. He looks happy :) My dad tells me though that the doctors think that he has some hearing problems and we'll probably need to learn sign language. Obviously it's one of those things we have to wait and see about. I guess it's a good thing I know the sign language alphabet?

I'm hoping I can have a better update when I actually see everyone next week, but for now this will have to do.

Yes, I bought him that onesie

Also, Evan's birthday is on friday, he'll be 4! If they could just stop growing up now, that would be great.....