First Day of School (aka Peace)

Today my eldest daughters had their first day of school.  Being that this is a new school for us, along with EVERYTHING being new to them, they also have changed from Dragons to Tigers.  I have yet to decide whether that is a demotion or an upgrade.

  Our morning started out as the usual - doing great with some rush the last 15 minutes or so before we left the house.  This new school is located such that it is a MUCH better idea to just walk them to and from school EVERY morning than to drive them. EVER.  The drive would take 3 times as long to get them to school than walking.  Funny how that works.  Apparently everyone decided to show up at the school pretty much at the EXACT.SAME.TIME.   There was definite bottle-necking from our two thick swarms of lines into the school two front doors and down the hallways riddled with trashcans and "leak buckets" to catch the leaks throughout the hallway.  I kid you not when I say Hunter literally thought it was an obstacle course on the way out.  He added his, "woo hoo's" and laughs all the way down the hall.  I all but chucked my children and their brown paper grocery bag full of supplies into their rooms to continue with my morning.

 Hunter has had some coughs lately and before we took off to drop off the fighting duo, he got sick.  He takes after his oldest sister that way - so much coughing it occasionally ends in getting rid of some extra fluid hanging around in that belly.  So, I embarked on the trip in hopes that was the only occurrence for the morning.  We got the girls to school and boogied as fast as we could to my local YMCA.  We had less than 2 miles to go to reach my exercise haven when he promptly coughed and coughed and.... lost more fluid!  Naturally I didn't bring extra clothes (I think I'll be coming up with an emergency kit for each child for that very reason pronto now) so we proceeded to head back in the direction of home.

  I rather enjoyed my day, watching my little guy ride his scooter (birthday present that was hanging out in the garage until next week for the poor kid - he kept bugging me to get it out - so I finally gave in today) around the house - he got quite good at it actually!  I cleaned up after breakfast and meals obviously, but other than that - didn't do much else.  I was determined to enjoy my day and relax a little.  By golly, I went through a WHOLE summer without a single day's rest from the fighting my older two are constantly parading around my home.  Except for the week they were visiting Mom mom and Pop pop in PA.

After school today, the girls said they loved it and it was SO much better than their other school because:  Melanie - I didn't have to write very much today.  and Julia - My green stamp smells like Lemon-Lime!!  I was GREEN ALL DAY LONG!!     Such truly wonderful feats for my daughters.  I thought back to last year at this time - I had only one child at home and was VERY close to delivering another.  She ended up arriving closer to the end of the month.  Now I have two children at home again- but am still really enjoying that so far.  She took a 3 hour nap today - so it was almost like having just one child around.   After her nap, we headed off to the library to return a book and check out more.  Hunter had a great time. There were two little girls there that were the cutest things!  One of them told me, "Hey, give me that baby" when we arrived at the play area.  I love how little kids seem to think ALL babies can talk - no matter what age!  They seemed to like my little princess of a baby though and were kind to both my children.

Pick-up was.....different.  So happy they are released at the same time this year though and I don't have to hang out for an extra half hour to get all my kids from school.  Anyway... it will take some getting used to for sure - but I hope it will run more smoothly as time rolls on.  I have to "fetch" both my children from the front of the school each day.  My kindergartner is the closest to the end of the school - but the first out - with my 2nd grader being the furthest away from our end of the school and let out after her.  So, I pick up one..... then walk down to get the other through the throngs of people.  Hunter rushed up to Melanie as they were lining up, then at some point re-entered the crowd of people and couldn't be found for a few moments.  I feel blessed that my girls seem to have very kind, wonderful teachers.  Melanie's teacher even has some fish in the classroom.  She is also really excited about being able to go swimming during school later this year.  What a treat!  Julia was hand in hand with some little boy as they walked out of school today (it seemed as though they were all paired up as buddies in her class today).  She of course was beaming about it - and even drew a picture with that same little boy and her beautiful teacher in it too!  Best part is - she can't remember his name!

The END of their first day 2012

 I am so happy they love school and love to learn.  I often hear them both going on and on about how much they love school.  (I just finished skimming this post and it's just a jumble of thoughts and bits of our day, but... it's going to stay just like that!  This is my brain on 4 kids - no drugs needed!)