I have to say, I enjoy Facebook on days like these. It was filled with friends and family posting their pictures of the kids on their first day of school. I, of course, added to our yearly ritual as well. Thankfully, I'm not getting groans from the kids yet, but I'm sure they are coming.
Last week was our last hurrah. We went to the state fair, ate lots of food, went to back-to-school night to drop off school supplies, Trevor forgot his, baseball practice then headed out to the lake for the only time all summer our family of four was there. Thankfully, thankfully, THANKFULLY we got gorgeous weather both Friday and Saturday we were there. We were able to be lazy and gradually enjoy waking up and walking around, and then the four of us went on a boat ride for the afternoon. The kids stopped and jumped into the lake at three spots, and since the lake has not gotten rain for a while, the algae had started to bloom. It is a river/creek fed man-made lake, so at least it doesn't have completely still water, but it was still bad on shorelines. Saturday, we got to say happy birthday to a very fun girl, and visit with my cousins kids. Again, THANKFULLY the weather was spectacular, so the kids played for hours in the water, went on a pontoon ride, and then got showered and changed for dinner. After dinner, the kids got a little more time to play, girls on the ping pong table with Russ, and Trevor and JJ played their video games. Then, they played a baseball game before ending on charades. Gwen requests that every time.
We came back on Sunday, and it wasn't very good weather anyway. We had a fun birthday celebration to get to! First birthdays are always fun, mostly because the kid has no idea what they are getting into, but seem to understand that for some reason it has to do with them. It was a great evening.
Monday, I spent the entire day getting ready for today. Grocery shopping, whoops, I forgot one thing, so I had to go back a second time. Major laundry to make sure all the right clothes were washed (more for the girl than anything). All the darn paperwork that needs to be turned back in to the school. Making the kids fill out their lunch wishes for the first month of school. It took all day, but it all got done.
Then today: Gwen was excited for the day, and found out the night before that Trevor said he was nervous. At first, that shocked me, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. He's hitting that age where he really cares about what other people think of him. Its not so much anymore about doing the work. He has no issues with that. His words about being nervous were something about how he was afraid the new kids would be mean to him. I made him make sense of that thought by asking him what he would feel in the reverse situation. I told him I had been a new kid and I was more worried than anything because I thought that everyone would have already made their friends. He was also sad to see the summer go, but I think that is normal. Thankfully neither kid was up late with nerves or excitement. I remember 4th grade was the year I was up past 2am on the first day of school because of my nerves. In the morning, Trevor didn't want to get up, but that's him not wanting to get moving. He was up. Gwen was not up, but was good getting moving, again because she was so excited.
We decided to walk to school, and while protesting at first, Gwen made it, and she told me that she did not want to walk home. I figured I could accommodate because she would be exhausted and probably not willing to walk back. Trevor was out the door and running to school. Guess those nerves wore off! We got to school in plenty of time. I asked Gwen if she wanted me to walk her to class, and at first she said no. I told her that I would say good bye to her at the office, and then she said she wanted me to walk her to class. I was fine with that. She found her hook and took out her stuff, and seemed very confident to walk right into class. She said good-bye with a giant smile on her face. I'm pretty sure she didn't see me choking up. But I took a deep breath and moved over to Trevor's room. I saw him going 100 miles and hour with a fellow classmate from last year. No worries from him.
So I had a whole day to myself. I treated myself to dinner with a friend at Crave. I had a salad and dessert and didn't have to keep checking the clock! It was amazing! I filled the rest of my day with little things. And quickly it was time to get the kids. I met them in the front area, and Trevor was good, but Gwen was on the fritz. She was SO crabby and I could tell hungry, thirsty and exhausted. Now, she would never admit it, but immediately she was yelling at me that she didn't want to walk home. I explained that I brought the car, but that wasn't good enough. She couldn't even walk to the car. *scream scream* *whine whine* I asked her to talk about her day and she didn't want to. So I asked Trevor. Then she wanted to. We got home and she wanted to eat something sweet. I had her finish her lunch. It wasn't as uneaten as I thought it would be, but after she had eaten, it helped a bit. She had homework to do, but didn't seem like she wanted to do it. Anyway, bottom line, Gwen was tired, Trevor said he had a great day and was all smiles. He really enjoys how often he rotates classes for different subjects. They have about a third of their class as not being in their last year's class. That is nice.
So for now, we will plod ahead to get into some sort of routine. I have some big events to plan for in the coming weeks already, and I don't know how I'm going to pull them off. We shall see.
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