The First Week

My next guest poster is Hokgardner, one of those incredibly fit running people who also happens to be able to work it around a busy life with three little ones and one more on the way. She is a freelance writer and editor, and a fellow grammarian, and she knits really cool socks. I love her and want to marry her. Well, except for the whole heterosexual happily married thing. Her dad gave me some excellent advice about ways to teach my kids to swim and ride two-wheelers. He happens to share a name with her youngest child, and at first I couldn't figure out just how a 2 year old had his own email address, but then again, I've never been known to be the brightest bulb on the tree.

We’ve survived our first week of school, but just barely. Once the excitement of the first day of school was over, things got much, much harder.

On the first day, the girls popped out of bed immediately, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Things went down hill from there, until today I had to resort to pulling one out of bed while yelling my dad’s traditional wake-up call of “Reveille, reveille, all hands on deck!” There were great protests at the rude awakening.

On Monday the girls gobbled their breakfasts and drank all their milk without my needing to stand over them and hurry them along. This morning they both complained about their breakfast of Cheerios with fresh blueberries on top and left half their bowls uneaten. Of course they complained about being hungry as soon as we got to school.

We’ve tried to institute a new routine where the girls set out their school clothes before they go to bed the night before. That worked for exactly two days. The past two mornings they have been rooting around their messy dresser, complaining that they don’t have anything to wear. When I pulled out new clothes that they begged me to buy, one complained that the shorts felt “weird” and the other said she didn’t want to wear her new skort because she couldn’t climb the monkey bars while wearing it. My pointing out that the skort had shorts underneath had no effect on her.

Sunday night the girls packed their backpacks with everything they wanted to take to school and left them next to the front door where we could find them. But this morning the youngest couldn't find some treasure that needed to go to school with her and refused to leave the house without it. Five minutes and lots of tears (hers and mine) later, we were finally out the door.

My excitement over the start of school has been replaced by exhaustion. I keep wondering "How many weeks of this do we have left?"

But I'll keep plugging along, trying to get everyone, including myself, into the swing of things. We'll probably have rough go of it for a while, but the payout will be worth it.

Either that or I'll start drinking something extra in my morning coffee.

 

Comments

[angi]

I am SO with you on the new clothes thing. How can something they picked out just days ago already not feel/fit right? My 1st grader wears all of her "old" favorites every day anyway.

I decided last year that I was not buying so many new school clothes, and this year has sealed the deal.

[Chris]

So cool, it's like I'm a GROUPIE following you!

It's not just ME?? Oh please, give me words of wisdom, as I've just gotten my oldest into Kindergarden. We're already purchasing Rum by the case - what ELSE can I do to survive this?