Day: August 22, 2007

More Beginning of School snippets

By / August 22, 2007

Kiki came home from school bright-eyed and enthusiastic. She’d been worried about navigating through the crowded halls, but found that the experience was actually fun. As she described it like a moving maze and a flowing river I realized that she was viewing the challenge of getting from class to class like a video game where the goal was not to run into other people. She is also full of praises for all her teachers. She thinks that they are all amazingly cool and is glad that the only homework she had tonight was a word search. I’m glad to see the disclosure documents and to realize that these classes are set up exactly to encourage the kind of educational discipline which Kiki needs. I don’t think she is going to be challenged academically this year, but I’d love for her to have the chance to get straight A’s and feel really competant.

I walked Link and Gleek home from school today. I’ve been hoping that I could eventually let them walk home together without me. It is going to be awhile before I’ll let that happen. Gleek needs to learn some good walking home habits before I’ll try to put Link in charge of her otherwise she’ll run him right over with one of her whims and he won’t know what to do about it. Honestly I don’t think they’ll be walking home for awhile either. Gleek is trying so hard to be perfectly behaved during school. First grade is so much longer than Kindergarten, she is worn out by the end of the day. It took her a full 15 minutes to make her way from her classroom to the meeting place. Then I had to threaten Time-Out to get her to climb down from the meeting place tree. Then there were several refuse-to-go-a-step-further moments on the walk home. Only the promise of chocolate chips at the end got her to her feet again. In a few weeks when life is more settled we’ll try walking home again. I’ll happily drive her home from school every day if I get announcements like today’s “I didn’t get sent to time out at all!”

Kiki is going to the doctor on Saturday. She has been sleepy and foggy for weeks. It used to be that she could not fall asleep during the day unless she was sick. Lately she has been sleeping for several hours each day, going to bed early, and getting up late. I know that she’s growing and maturing, but 15 hours of sleep per day seems excessive for that. I hope that she’ll test positive for Mono on Saturday. Having Mono would stink, but I like that diagnosis much more than some of the alternatives I’ve been able to think up.

The new schedule has me blogging a lot more. I’m not sure if that is a result of the large quiet spaces in my days or if it is merely me trying to process how the new schedule affects everything. I think it is a little of both.

Beginning of School snippets

By / August 22, 2007

On the night before the First Day of School, Gleek was happily assembling her “back to school” bag. This was a bag containing 3 or 4 items that Gleek can show and use to tell about herself. Gleek decided that one of the items was going to be her blankie. Upon hearing this Link’s eyes went wide and he spent the next 15 minutes trying to convey to Gleek that taking blankies to school isn’t a good idea. That in fact he doesn’t tell anyone that he still sleeps with blankies every night. I mentioned to Link that 1st grade is much different than 4th grade and the blankie went into the bag. I loved this incident because it showed to me that Link really is beginning to pick up some of those oh-so-necessary unwritten rules of social interaction. He’s very much in his own world much of the time and I’ve been worried that this would make him socially clueless. It gladdens my heart that he is not only picking up some of the social rules, but is also looking out for his sister to make sure that she doesn’t have an unpleasant experience.

I drove to pick up the kids from their first day at school. I elected to do so because I was not at all certain what state Gleek would be in at the end of the day. I didn’t want to haul a screaming/exhausted little girl while walking. It turns out that she came bursting from class filled with energy. The walk would have been fine. Oh well. I’ll walk today. As we headed for the car, the sprinklers came on. It was instantly apparent to me that new sprinklers had been installed and that they were improperly adjusted. “Sprinkler” is such a nice term, implying little drops of water falling gently to water plants. These were actually industrial strength gushers that bore more resemblance to the streams of water that issue from firehoses than to anything sprinkly. Imagine if you will 10 jets of water shooting out 50 feet each and a yard full of school children. Imagine further that these jets do not stay politely in the grassy areas, but also liberally spray the playground, walkways, and parking lot. There were shouts of glee from children and cries of dismay from parents. Half the kids ran for the water and were instantly soaked. The other half fled from the water. Gleek got wet, of course. Link and Patches fled. Our van got thoroughly drenched. I even got sideswiped once. Personally I was more amused than upset by the sprinklers. But I’m certain that there were parents who were angry. The school office has definitely informed the custodian so that the watering schedule can be adjusted. I suspect they were supposed to go off at 2:15 am instead of pm.

I took Kiki school shopping. It was a trip for just the two of us. It was a good time for me to get details about her first day. All evidence that I have indicates that she had a good time. She’s convinced that she is in a good school and she likes most of her teachers. There is one teacher who assigned homework on the first day. Kiki was outraged at this. It amused me greatly that Kiki’s homework was essentially the same assignment as Gleeks “Back to school bag.” Kiki has to select three things to take to school and use them to tell about herself. This was the horrible assignment which caused moaning and groaning. The shopping was fun. Naturally at every stop Kiki finagled me into buy more things than was my original intention. However Kiki will have to pay me back for some of the items. There are further items she’d like to buy, but which she’ll have to save up for first. Most of the extras were things like post-it notes and highlighter pens. I’m not sure why post-it notes were critically important, but I did buy her a little starter pad so she can see if she really uses them. The important thing is that when she walked out the door this morning she had a new shirt and her new binder and a new purse to accompany her on her adventures in junior high land.

It is very common for the left-at-home sibling to feel lonely and left out when the older ones are gone to school. Patches has expressed a desire to start preschool, but for the most part he seems to be relishing the quiet as much as Howard and I are. He plays happily by himself for hours on end. Around lunch time today I gathered him up and sat down to eat with him. We had a nice time just the two of us sitting and eating and talking. Then I read him a couple of stories. It is a pattern I think I want to keep. I have work things to do for much of the day, but I can devote some time to just Patches right around lunchtime. I do need to make sure that Patches gets enough interaction with other kids during the course of the day. Preschool starts next Tuesday and will provide some of that. I’ll still be watching and making play dates as necessary.

You know you’re a blogger when…

By / August 22, 2007 / 6 Comments

You know you’re a blogger when you drop your child off for her first day of First Grade and realize you didn’t bring the camera, but you’re already composing sentences in your head.

Yeah. Gleek will only get a picture of her first day of First Grade because my neighbor took one. But she gets a blog entry. That counts for something right?

Look Ma! No More Mess!

By / August 22, 2007

Last night I attended my third Writer’s Group meeting. It was an entirely pleasant experience and I came home invigorated and happy. I intend to repeat that experience next week even though I’ll actually be submitting something. So Yay!

In other news, Gleek came home from school and happily announced that she’d only been in time out once all day. I cheered for her accomplishment. And it is an accomplishment since she was sent to the Office several times during her first week of Kindergarten. I think that she wants things to go well as much as I do. She is trying hard.

Link’s first day went well. He already likes his teacher.

Kiki had to do her first homework assignment last night. She was prepared to get herself all worked up about it. I listened the the moaning and groaning long enough to help her hammer out an outline. Then I left her to do the assignment (or not) all by herself. With no audience to complain to, she just did her work without problems.

I came home from writers group last night to find all four kids fast asleep. I am the one that does bedtime every night, but I had to leave for writer’s group before any of the kids were down for the night. Howard managed it all without any major upsets. It was so nice to come home and not have to deal with bedtime. Although when I lay down in bed the Mommy Radar kept pinging me to tell me that I hadn’t put the kids to bed yet. Fortunately checking on the sleeping kids sufficed and I went to sleep.

This morning the kid did not jump out of bed happily, but once they got rolling everything went well. It is quite a bit more chaotic trying to get them all ready simultaneously instead of one at a time. But I’d much rather do one high-intensity hour than 2 and half medium intensity ones. Also one 5 minute drive is so much better than a two drives with a combined time of 25 minutes.

I’m sure that by this afternoon there will be new and exciting messes to manage, but for now all is well.