School Kids

I sent this picture to Jed on the first day of school. His response, "We're old!"  Maybe.  We are three weeks deep into second grade and kindergarten.  Everyone is still alive.  The first week was simply exhausting.  Not just for the kids!  All of us mom's in the neighborhood had this "look."  We were beaten down.  Lunches, schedules, planners, clean laundry, driving, nutritious breakfasts, homework, the signing of tedious paperwork, the list goes on.  I forgot how much work school is!  Then the second week we had Labor day weekend and an extra day off for staff development day and it was kind-of like starting over again. Plus the feeling of the last desperate days before school started in the first place, when I was begging for a release from these wild, little beasts that had taken over the house.  Third week, the great flood happened and school was cancelled and chaos reigned.  The teacher's haven't had back-to-school night but they are moving forward like they have and are sending home all kinds of assignments you need to interpret on a wing and a prayer.  The gray paper isn't for the fifty million spelling word sentences MOM it's for the re-interpretation of variations of vocabulary words.  ??  Hopefully this week we will figure out what in the world second grade entails so Jara can start sleeping again.  I think I'm on to Kindergarten.  Jara paved that road already, poor eldest child.  

Moments so far...

• Jara reading her math facts sheets to Jack and "quizzing" him.  Reality: Jack was telling her the answers and she was writing them down.  She finagled him into doing her homework, without him even knowing!  
• The bus mishap and the bus driver not letting Jack off the bus and Jara having a melt-down trying to save him.  Me wanting to perform an act of hostility and hiding it deep down in time to save my soul, resulting in kindness on the bus drivers part.  Gulp. It's never hurt so much to be nice but benefited everyone so well.  
• The power going out the last ten minutes in school and the kids coming home soaked from the torrential down-pour.  Aunt Ashley had to save them from the bus stop, since my car was stuck in the power-operated garage.  (yes I figured out later how to solve that problem)
• Jara working on memorizing poetry.  (I still remember doing that in 2nd grade.)
• Jack loving every song, story, snack of Kindergarten. The first or second day he came home with a picture of P.J. the rabbit and couldn't stop talking about a darling story he read in class.  The excitement on his face!