new year at school

this last week was filled with antsy children and tired parents. chris did his spreadsheet with bedtimes and how many hours of sleep each child should get each night. (after doing online research of course.)

the back-to-school shopping done. all supplies bought and ready. meet the teachers met. last nights of sleep-overs and all nighters. cramming 3 months of lost math and reading skills into two weeks. it worked on most days. one last have-the-stuckie's-over-for-movie-night. (the sound of music. the first hour all 12 of us together. the last hour four adults remained.)


then came that early, early morning. without any bumps. (although eddie and ceily lost cell phone privileges by 7:30...)

chris and i believe middle school may have been the elixir that cured this sister/brother relationship. they haven't stopped talking since yesterday. love, love, love it.

i walked into ceily's room around 6am and she was sitting on her bed, clad in first day clothes, texting. she had been awake since 4:30. her hair straightened flat. looking beautiful and cute and darling, with a flair of individuality. like always."why didn't you come into my room?", eddie exclaimed from across the hall. "i couldn't sleep either."

eddie quickly dressed. "are you done cleaning your room?, asked the mom. "i'm done," replied the snotty child. "you'll be done for life if you don't get back upstairs now." the mom said. (boy's phone taken for displaying great disrespect towards the mom.) he looked handsome, hair gelled up into faux-hawk. he was excited, if a bit nervous, about going to middle school.

noah dressed as well, but had been mentioning throughout the week that he was not going to be attending the first day of school. he would go to the second day, but not the first.

i said that was fine, because he may remember, he had promised me he would never grow up and go to school. (last year he lied and went to kindergarten.)

lana dressed, did her hair, laced her shoes, ate her breakfast, took pictures. "mom, remember last year when i didn't want to go into the classroom and i stood outside the door?" i think she was thinking that might be a good idea this year as well.

then they came home. eddie and ceily first. lana and noah second. i had been waiting all day.

as we sat at the dinner table, ceily asked how long she had napped...2+ hours. her favorite was meeting her new bff, matt.

eddie's worst was not being able to open his locker and being late for some classes. his favorite was the sundae from sonic, celebrating the first day of school.

lana's worst was having to go to school. she was happy we had sundaes.

after noah fell apart maybe 20 million times, lamenting his life, and his mean mom, sitting in time out, crying, deciding he was going to bed for the rest of the night!, hating salad for dinner!!!, he finally wiped his tears and sat at the table with the rest of the family. his worst was no one talked to him and he hates school.

i had spent hours in the hot, hot car cleaning gross, disgusting trash and other stuff, deciding many times over that my children were no longer allowed to ride in my car. realizing that maybe that was a bit dramatic but then deciding again, that no, they don't deserve the luxury because apparently they don't care about respecting other's property...blah, blah, blah.
my worst was when i scratched the car as i was leaving the car wash. "good thing we aren't planning on selling it," commented the husband.

chris' worst was discovering that the upstairs air conditioning isn't working. (that is a very good worst. i would have chosen that to, but scratching the car was worse-er.)

BUT

my best by far was seeing everyone after missing them all day long and jumping into the very clean car, and racing to sonic for jr. sundaes to celebrate the first day of school. i was nice mom again and had decided i love them more than not and want them in my car, next to me, with me, enjoying them, listening to them sing and talk. (except ceily. she was alseep. was greatly surprised and shocked upon hearing we had eaten ice cream without her.)

aren't they cute?