Jon & Kate Plus 8: School Days
This past week's episode of "Jon & Kate Plus 8" was a day of firsts, as the Gosselins prepared all eight kids for their first day of school. This year the sextuplets will be in junior kindergarten.
To prepare for the big day, Kate brought all eight kids to the shoe store to buy new tennis shoes. Normally Kate buys them online and she picks them herself, but this time she went to the store and had the kids pick them out themselves. She only allowed them to pick Velcro tennis shoes; she won't allow tied shoes until they can tie them themselves. While at the shoe store, they also bought book bags, socks, and lunch boxes. Kate was especially excited when she found a lunch box with horses on it for Hannah, and one with a dinosaur on it for Aaden, which matched perfectly to the backpack she already bought him. To pick them out, Kate took one kid at a time and showed them their options. The kids then chose what they wanted.
At this point, Kate opened up about her connection with the outside world. Two years ago, she would've hated people staring at her family in public. At the time, she knew she was in the spotlight because they were on television, but she didn't make that connection. Now she has realized that she is more open to it. She has noticed that people are very supportive of her and are telling her she's doing the right thing. She said it almost makes her cry.
The night before as Kate prepared for the next morning, she began to realize that her kids are growing up and she has to let go of them.
"I don't care if you have one or six kids, it's still hard," said Kate.
Even the older girls couldn't believe the sextuplets were getting old enough to go to school and get on the bus.
That night the little kids helped with the preparation when they made an assembly line for their lunches. Mady and Cara also helped Kate set up everything for the morning, including the backpacks, lunch boxes and outfits all with nametags on them, after the little kids went to bed.
Finally the morning of their first day of school arrived. The babysitter came at five a.m. to help get them ready. The kids woke up at 5:30 a.m. and were excited to go to school. To Kate's surprise, there were no tears shed, which was what she had expected.
Also to much surprise, Jon arrived that morning to watch his kids go off to school. The kids were excited he came, while Kate was very surprised.
"It's my kids' first day of school. It's something they've been excited about ever since they saw Mady and Cara get off the school bus. I wouldn't miss it," said Jon.
Jon and Kate decided that Kate would take the little kids to the bus stop, and Jon would take Mady and Cara. It worked out well. Originally, Kate had planned to take the bus with the kids the first couple of days to help them get acquainted with the schedule, but she decided not to for the sake of the other kids and parents. Kate explained that if she had gotten on the bus, the paparazzi would've followed them, and she didn't want to put that risk on the other parents. Because of this privacy, they don't tape any of the school or the bus stop scenes.
During the entire day, Kate was very overwhelmed with the emotions. She was very sad. She also commented on how the divorce has affected this moment.
"I didn't have anyone to say yes we did it' with," she said.
One good thing Kate said, about the kids going to school was that she would be able get more work done around the house during the day, including her paperwork for her business, laundry and errands. This way she could spend more time with her kids when they get home. While Kate was home on this specific day, she did laundry and cleaned Mady and Cara's room. When she went up to their room to get their laundry, she was "flabbergasted" at the mess she saw. It took her two hours and six bags to clean their room.
By this time, it was time for Kate to go pick up the little kids from school. They only had a half day the first day. Kate forgot about this half day, so the little kids ate their lunches at home. She took this opportunity to tell them the rules of the lunchbox. These include: eating their sandwich and fruit first, then eating their dessert. If they don't eat their sandwich and fruit, they can't eat their dessert. They also can't throw food away.
Over lunch, the little kids said the first day of school went well and that they were ready to go back to school on Monday. Although Cara and Mady were excited for the little kids to be going to school, they sort-of felt like they were infringing upon their space. One example of this was when the little kids were walking in the hall with their class and they saw Cara in her classroom sitting by the door, they all yelled out Cara's name. Cara said all the teachers had to close their doors.
Overall it was a good day for all of them.