That Grass is So Green...

I need to tell you something: School starts in 7 weeks.

7 weeks?! One of the things I hate about getting older is that time really does speed up. You start to see how everything is cyclical. It's perpetually almost Christmas or almost summer...the beginning and then the end of another school year.

It was more fun when time went slow.

Maybe I'm just lamenting that this is my first summer in four years that I'm not staying home at least most of the time with my boys. Ironically, I am home, but I'm up in my office working. I like my job and all, but I miss having all that time with my kids...even the times when I was bored out of my mind, or being driven mad by the whining...I miss when they were my focus for the day. I miss when my days weren't shaped by conference calls.

I'd like to think that I'm just in the end-phase of my readjustment period. When I started this job just 2 1/2 months ago, it sort of felt like I jumped back into full-time work suddenly, but in reality, I had been working 20-30 hours/week for an entire year before that...maybe I'm adjusting to working full-time and working from home...during the summer...when my kids and my husband are also home. Maybe it's not a matter of adjustment, it's just hard.

It's hard to work because my kids are here and it's hard to not work because my office is here. But I love, love, love not having a commute and not having to get dressed up for work and being able to go downstairs if somebody really needs me (or if I really need them)...so I'm not complaining. I'm just saying I miss having all of that time...

And I'm also kinda looking forward to school starting.

Day One (Lunchables are Evil)

Apparently first grade is all about lunch. When my boys got off the bus today, that is all that I heard...I guess eating lunch at school is far more fascinating than I remember.

Oh, but it's exciting stuff. The Lunchables that I let myself be talked into buying as a special first day treat, turned out to be just as complicated as I had predicted and one of Owen's precious pizza crusts fell on the floor. And then pizza crust number two was "an absolute disaster," according to him. It is unclear how the one he ate was more of a disaster than the one that fell on the floor, but I think it had something to do with his idea that the first pizza would be the one with the pizza sauce and the second would be the "treatza" (essentially chocolate frosting with rainbow sprinkles). I don't know, those things should have an age warning on them.

Aidan had some trouble with his Lunchable as well, but he was just as happy to chime in about Owen's lunch meltdown, which he witnessed from the neighboring table because they are in separate classes this year(!).

However, my favorite synopsis of the day came from Owen, when I asked if he paid attention in class today. "Yeah," he said. "I was 78% focused." Well, okay then.

Here's to doing it all again tomorrow! Minus the Lunchables.

Bracing for the Punch

I am staring down an exhausting week during which my babies will start first grade and I will start my new 5-day work schedule - and my husband will be in Texas for all of it. I'm anticipating a lot of frozen pizza eating and Food Network watching...

I'm not panicking, I'm just dreading it a little.

And btw, how did my babies become first graders? It's weird enough that they are actual people with opinions about things, but it's almost like they have jobs now with starting school full-time. I don't think I'm ready. Luckily, they are.

At dinner tonight, I mentioned that tomorrow is the last day of summer break. This was met with cheers of, "On Tuesday we start first grade!!" Let's hope that enthusiasm lasts.

So far, they are most excited about eating lunch at school and having gym. I have refrained from telling them that those are likely to become the things they hate most in a year or two. Who knows? Maybe school lunch has become super great...and maybe they will excel in athletics...and maybe there are flying pigs living in my attic.

And, as a side note, the teenager wreaked some havoc this weekend by choosing to stay out all weekend partying rather than show up for his senior pictures...the senior pictures that I've been planning for months and that were probably way too important to me, but still...I've been obsessing all weekend about whether he will ever grow up and whether I'll ever be able to have a decent relationship with him, and then I read this heartbreaking piece and it gave me the perspective my mind needed to quiet the "what ifs," at least momentarily.

I'm trying to reclaim the feeling of gratitude for him being here to argue with at all. It doesn't excuse bad behavior, but it softens the blow.

Slacking

At last, winter break has arrived and it could not have come too soon. I know I'm supposed to cringe at the thought of losing those precious 12 1/2 hours per week where my kids are in school and I am free to lounge around sipping coffee (or job hunt, as the case may be), but the truth is that I've been falling down on the job when it came to school these past few weeks.

They've got homework every night and yet somehow this managed to completely escape me on at least three recent occasions. Not that I should have to remember it all on my own, but well, they are only five...which, I assume, is why kindergartners never used to get homework. 

Then there's the reading log, which I realized I didn't fill out even once this week. I'm kind of hoping maybe the teacher will just assume she lost that page or something...

Do you think this will reflect poorly on their first semester report cards? Like, Aidan is an exceptional child. He reads at a 4th grade level and has an extensive knowledge of world history. Unfortunately, we don't grade those areas. His reading log was incomplete. C-

Anyway, the point at which I realized I had really checked out of this school thing was when I went to pick the kids up yesterday. So I'm sitting in my minivan playing Diner Dash (it's soooo addicting), as usual, waiting for their smiling faces to appear when I begin to see moms and children exiting two-by-two, the mothers glancing in my direction with an expression of confusion mixed with pity. 

The holiday party!, I thought. The boys mentioned that they were having a holiday party today. Was I supposed to be there?

And that is the very question I asked when the boys piled into the van with blue frosting smeared across their faces. "Were mommies supposed to come to the party?!"

Both boys considered this question. 

"Janie's mom was there." Aidan offered. 

"Thomas' grandpa was there," Owen added. 

"Some other parents were there," Aidan said, cautiously, as if he didn't want to hurt my feelings.

"I didn't know! I didn't know I was supposed to come!" I said, defensively, although they didn't seem particularly concerned. And really, I didn't know...even though I read every scrap of paper the school sends home, I didn't know I was supposed to go. Are my children scarred? No. 

It's just that since I haven't had any work for the past few weeks, you'd think I might excel in my stay-at-home mom duties...well, you'd be wrong. It seems that not having any deadlines looming over me simply means my brain turns into mush and all productivity halts. Hmmm...well, at least now we know. 

And so, for the next two weeks, I will give in to my inner sloth. No scheduled activities, lots of cookies, no homework, and probably too much Wii. Yay winter break!

It Has Begun

Day 1: The boys woke up excited this morning. We took pictures with their little backpacks and made sure to eat a good breakfast. 

When we got to school, things were so chaotic that there was no time for tears. Owen had a little fit about hanging up his backpack, but I think he was overwhelmed by all of the noise in the hall - I'm hoping he'll get used to it. Then Aidan got upset because he ripped his name tag by accident (they are forced to wear nametags around their necks for the first week), but the teacher fixed it with a little scotch tape. 

When I kissed them goodbye, they were already absorbed in the school's "newscast," which they play every morning on TVs in the classroom (I haven't decided how I feel about that yet). 

Pick-up went well too - we're supposed to wait out in our cars for the kids to exit the building, which is weird, but all of us moms had gathered outside the door to greet them on their first day. The sub special ed teacher walked out with the boys so he could introduce himself. He already seems to care about Owen, so I think we're off to a good start there (despite my concerns yesterday). Let's hope the real teacher is as warm and fuzzy. 

The boys were bubbling with excitement. According to them, they colored, they read "The Kissing Hand," they sang a song, and they ate a snack...pretty much everything you could hope for in a day of kindergarten. 

And so it has begun...let's hope the whole year turns out as well as today. 

Getting Oriented

Tomorrow is the official start of kindergarten, but today was orientation. I really tried to go in there with a good attitude, but in the end, my cynicism was only strengthened. 

As soon as we arrived, they separated parents and kids, which is okay, except that the kids had to spend an hour in a classroom with a teacher that is NOT their kindergarten teacher, while the parents endured a presentation by the actual kindergarten teacher that could have just as easily been read from the nicely stapled packets we all received. The gist? 

• Bring a snack -- but under no circumstances should a peanut come into contact with that snack. 
• Keep your kids home if they're sick -- but you are a negligent parent if you don't send them to school any other day, including if you take them on vacation to Disneyworld. 
  
• Bad kids go to the "quiet room" -- you don't want your kid to go there.
• Your child will have homework every night, which means you will have homework every night because you have to sign off on everything once it's done.

So what can I say? I wasn't impressed. The teacher seems nice enough, but why didn't anyone think to provide a time where the kids could actually meet her? When I went to get the boys from the playroom, Aidan said, "Our teacher wasn't there!" He was (rightly) confused. So I brought them back to the parent-only room to introduce them to their teacher.

I asked their teacher why we haven't received a scrap of information about who Owen's special ed teachers will be. And why weren't any of them there? I know my kid isn't the only one with an IEP - shouldn't this orientation be a little more inclusive? 

As expected, their teacher didn't know anything about it, but she did offer the useful tidbit that the woman in charge of coordinating special ed services at their school had to have surgery and would be out for 4 more weeks. Um, so what does that mean to me? Their teacher guessed that there just wouldn't be any special ed services for 4 weeks (or more)...

So what you are telling me is that my son will have an entire month to settle into the "typical" school routine and then you will begin yanking him out of class to work with teachers he's never met? Brilliant. 

I got home and called the principal to see if he could provide a better answer, but given that it's the first day of school for the rest of the grades, I'm not holding my breath on a call back today. 

I know, it's probably all my fault. I should have called the district back in August when I still hadn't heard anything, but stupid me figured it wouldn't be that big of a deal to simply speak to the teachers at the orientation. I mean, the plan is already documented, all I needed was to meet the people involved. 

Add to all that the fact that they are going to spend next week writing the letter A and learning to read the words I, a, and is, and well, I just don't have a lot of faith. 

And speaking of faith, while we were getting on the school bus that we were all forced to ride around the block (even the kids who aren't going to take the school bus), Aidan pipes up with the question: "Why do all the churches have plus signs on them?" Those are crosses, honey. "What's a cross?" 

And there you have it. Our complete lack of religion exposed before all of my children's would-be friends and their parents. It's not that I'm ashamed that I don't subscribe to organized religion, it's just not a great icebreaker...especially out here in suburbia. 

With this much excitement in a 90-minute orientation, I can only imagine what tomorrow will bring. Here's hoping the kids' enthusiasm eclipses my cynicism.