I've known since we started this private school journey last fall that it would probably mean a lot of changes in our lives. Tuition, uniforms, more homework, farther distance, different schedules, new subjects, totally different classmates. Based on what we had been told at open house, I knew that he'd probably end up on a bus with high school kids and that it would be early. I figured he'd have to be up an hour or so earlier, out the door by maybe 7:00 or so. Even still, I worried about it all summer, and yesterday the letter finally showed up. Both kids' letters did, actually. I was disappointed enough to see Carter's pick-up was earlier than last year, at 8:09am, and his stop moved up the street about five houses to where Jacob's used to be, rather than at the closer corner. But nothing prepared me for opening Jacob's.
It took me a minute to hone in on the pick-up time, probably because it seemed completely foreign: 6:36am. Six-thirty-what-now?! I'm not even conscious at 6:36, at least not for anything more than snoozing alarm #2. How am I supposed to get an 11-year-old boy who never hears his alarm up, showered, dressed, fed, packed up, and off to the bus stop (which is WAY around the corner--at least a five minute walk, so he'll probably be driven) by 6:36? It'll still be dark, for Pete's sake. School doesn't even start until 8am, which means he'll be up for a solid 2-1/2 hours by the time he makes it to his desk. The bus routes through the high school on the absolute opposite side of the town from us. I have no idea why, but it seems ridiculous since no kids in our neighborhood should be going to that school.
He's already giving me trouble about his proposed bedtime--8:30. It's a far cry from where it was last year (9:30) and where it's been most of the summer (10pm). But if he's going to have to be up early, he needs to get some earlier sleep to counteract it, or we'll have a crazy, overtired kid on our hands. The thing is, between sports and ADHD, I'm not sure 8:30 is even possible. Some nights we're not getting home from basketball until nearly 8, and then we still need to eat dinner. It's pushing 9pm by the time we're done. In addition, he's long had trouble falling asleep, probably because his ADHD tends to ramp him up at night. Sometimes he'll lay there for an hour or more before he falls asleep. I have a feeling I'll have to take his phone at bedtime to reduce temptation, and we might have to rely on melatonin for a while to get him in the habit of falling asleep earlier. Even then it might not be realistic to do lights out any earlier than 9pm, but we'll have to try.
Realistically he'll have to be up before 6am, and since he never hears his alarm, that means one of us would have to be up by then to get him moving. We'll probably have to pack his lunch at night (unless any one of us wants to be doing it at 6am), and somehow get ready soon enough to drop him off at the stop, in the dark, at 6:30. And if he misses the bus, someone will have to get completely ready before 7:30 to take him.
Of course, we could just skip all this and take him every day. 7:30 sounds better than 6:30, no doubt. But it won't always work, especially when Craig is traveling. Carter's bus is at 8:09 and he can't be dropped off at school until about 8:45, so that would be a lot of back-and-forth, and I'd still be late to work! But on normal days, getting out the door a full hour earlier than we used to and driving a lot of extra miles each day doesn't sound great. But I suppose I'd rather do it myself than have Craig do it. He usually needs more sleep and he shouldn't put any more miles than necessary on the van, since it's only three years old and has nearly caught up to my almost-seven-year-old car in mileage. But his trip to work from there is quicker and he's supposed to be at work at 8:30 anyway. But it might behoove me to do it because I could possibly shift my work day earlier by a half hour or so, which would let me get home to Jacob sooner (he'll be home by 4pm) and ideally get a head start on dinner, which would help us shift our entire evening earlier and make earlier bedtimes more feasible and less noticeable for all of us. I'm probably leaning toward this option right now, but I have a feeling next week will include some experimentation to figure out what works.
But the big question mark in all of this is how we'll all do with getting up at an ungodly early hour (at least in our household) on a regular basis. We've never had to do that before, and it's concerning to me that it could break us. Yes, maybe we'll adjust just fine. But what if the long bus ride/extra commute/lack of sleep/general change in schedule is too much for us? I mean, sure...you push through and make it work. But what if, in the end, it just doesn't work for us? What if the upside isn't enough to make this significant disruption worth it? What if Jacob hates the schedule so much that he just shuts down? What if the time shift just makes us miserable? I don't want him to miss out on this opportunity because we're struggling with seemingly insignificant stuff--even if Jacob's the one struggling the most--but it's possible this could be too much for any one of us.
Maybe we should have asked more questions and been more realistic about what made sense for our entire family, not just Jacob. I'm currently kicking myself for not pushing harder to look at the Christian K-12 school (also with a great basketball team) that's literally less than 10 minutes down the road, right on a direct route to work. I guess that's our backup plan if this whole thing implodes, but it would stink to go through this transition now and worry that we'll need to do another one a year from now. I'd hate to be all-in on this school and then have to leave to maintain our sanity. It feels sort of like the letdown of our FCA lacrosse experience--thinking we were just starting a long run, buying the merchandise, touting the mission, and then suddenly being done far sooner than expected. I just hate not finishing things, so the mere thought of this not working out (no matter how premature) makes me nuts. I was already worried enough about Jacob's academic transition, but adding this complete change in schedule is now scaring me even more. I know I'm worrying prematurely and we'll need to give it time, but I know how important sleep is in this house and I'm just concerned that we'll all tire of this craziness--particularly knowing it could be our reality for seven years. Can we sustain that? I truly have no idea.
I don't know why this particular challenge is worrying me so much more than any of the other adjustments we have ahead. Maybe it's because we're all impacted and it involves an area (sleep) where we already struggle. I just don't like going into this with the deck stacked against us to this degree. It makes me worry that if Jacob has any other struggles, they're only going to be compounded by there already being one area where we're feeling pushed to our limits. I guess we won't know how bad it is for at least a couple weeks, to see if we can settle in or if it just keeps getting harder. It's a time to turn over a new leaf and make some new habits. I just hope we're strong enough to keep them going.
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