Let's Play School

So, we decided that we definitely needed to practice the school schedule before the big day in just over a week. Since the tardy bell for Ruth's school rings at 7:45, we decided that best time for Ruth to get up is 6:40, meaning I need to get up even earlier than that. It has been really hard for Ruth to get up and get going in the morning (not to mention her mom), and she'll be the first to tell you that the new schedule isn't much fun. (I'll be the second)! We've been timing her breakfast-eating and her getting dressed, and I think the schedule we've chosen is the right one. She definitely couldn't get up any later and get to school on time. We've also adjusted the afternoon rest time to be a bit more like what it will be like at school, meaning Ruth isn't really getting much rest at all. And of course, the bedtime schedule has become a bit more ridgid as well. The decrease in sleep has definitely caused an increse in behavior problems--not helped by the fact that we were on vacation for 10 days just before this little experiment I'm sure--but hopefully by the time school starts, we'll have all the kinks worked out and things will run smoothly. I had a horrible dream while we were on vacation that we were late for the first day of school and the teacher wouldn't let me sign up for any of the classroom helper things because she said if I couldn't even get my own kid to school on time, I couldn't be trusted to do anything with any of the other kids. I'm definitely trying to avoid that scenerio!