The First Day of School - 2012

Ashton started 7th grade at the middle school and Isaac started 6th grade at the intermediate school (the two schools are right by each other). They start at 8am.

 Eliza's first day of 4th grade and Oliver and Silas's first day of 2nd grade (these three go to the K-4 school which starts at 8:30am)

 Heading into school (this'll be the last year in this school building - they're building a new school behind this one and then this old school with no air conditioning and a serious lack of space but considerable charm will be torn down)

Everyone was pleased as punch about the new school year.

The first day of school was a big hit for everyone and so far so good on upholding my new resolutions (from this post). I got up on time this morning, made a nice breakfast for the kids, and we got out the door very nearly on time and made it to school pretty much on time (getting through the crowds to actually get the little kids into their classrooms took longer than I thought - so fun to see them so excited to see friends they haven't seen all summer and fun to get some hugs from some of their cute friends myself). Ashton wanted to ride his bike to school by himself. He's done that a lot but I thought on his first day of middle school, he might want me to drive him and felt a little sad when he insisted he wanted to go alone. But that's OK. I'm supposed to be working myself out of a job bit by bit, right?

After getting the kids to school, I enjoyed a quiet grocery store trip by myself (every grocery store run over the summer seemed to be a good time for a "mommy date" with one of the kids which was great but wow, I'm sure a lot faster at the grocery store when I go by myself!). I came home to finish my blog post on resolutions that has been half-written and on my mind forever. It felt great to finalize and declare my "do's" and "don't's" for the upcoming school year and caught up on piles of timely emails. Then I took a break from work to make cookies for the kids so we could have a special after school snack and talk.

When I got to the school, the kids' hugs and smiles were extra wonderful after being apart from them for more hours than I've been apart from them in a long, long time. At home, we talked about teachers and friends and events of the day while we enjoyed a pretty darn good batch of cookies, if I do say so myself (my favorite recipe is HERE). I stayed pretty calm and kind when the kids kept interrupting each other and getting off track as I tried to get kids to share their back-to-school news in a somewhat orderly fashion. But in the end everyone got to talk and every listened a bit and it was a good little party.

Then I sat down individually with each kid to go through all the info they brought home and sign a bunch of disclosures about what would be expected in each class. Of course there was plenty of interrupting from one kid while I was trying to help someone else, but hey, that's life with 5 kids and I politely asked interrupters to wait their turn and they were pretty good about it.

All in all, this afternoon went great and at least right now, I'm feeling like I'm the mother I mean to be. I love it when I feel like this. I'm really in-the-know about each teacher and class the kids will be in this year after thoroughly going through all their stuff rather than putting it in a pile to look at later or just skimming and signing the stuff that's supposed to go back. I planned well, prioritized well, and felt calm and happy throughout the tricky parts of the day. This is good.

We are going to be prepared for things this year. We are going to enjoy things this year. We're off to a good start with our new motto "be prepared, slow down, and enjoy"!