Back-To-School Means Something Different Here

August 11, 2008

In only four Mondays, summer vacation as we know it will end for the kids in our town. And, while I should just be enjoying the summer, I am starting to sweat the start of our school days.

Why? Let me count the ways:

1. The “start of school” means I go back to some sort of schedule of teaching my precocious, stubborn, lovely, moody seven-year-old.

2. I meant to do “School Lite” all summer so that she wouldn’t forget everything she learned last year (especially math, blah). “Meant to” are the operative words.

3. This fall marks the start of Kindergarten for #2. And, while Kindergarten is not mandatory in our state (meaning I do not have to report her work to the school district), I would like to do some basic math and reading with her. This means juggling two kids around our kitchen table.

4. Oh, and I have a third to keep occupied during these hours. A third child who wants mommy to drop everything to “build a road and a house” out of blocks. Now.

5. Our homeschool coop will start up in September. As will Sunday School (I teach), Brownies & Daisy Scouts (resisting the call to lead a troop), dance class, gymnastics, swimming (thankfully, I do not teach any of those) and some social activity for D if he will ever allow himself to be potty trained and dropped off somewhere for a few hours.

6. All the while, I’d like to get washboard abs, cook homemade dinners nightly, enjoy my new job, write here and here, and hopefully see my husband from time to time as he juggles his crazy life.

The nicest thing? No more mad dashes for the school bus. Now, excuse me while I go to rouse everyone for Camp Week Two. We have a bus to catch.

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Filed Under: Fairly Odd Me, Homeschooling 15 Comments

Hoping History Doesn’t Repeat

August 8, 2008


I am a crier.

I cry at many movies (even Clerks II), television shows (anything on Animal Planet) and while listening to music (Jungleland live did it).

But, I didn’t really think that I’d cry no less than six times while at a G-rated movie with my kids. A G-rated American Girl doll movie. How lame am I?

The movie, Kit Kittredge, was much funnier, smart and enjoyable than I expected. It was also heart-breakingly sad in its depiction of the Great Depression and what it did to ‘ordinary families’. Fathers left their wives and kids for work and then disappeared, leaving children confused and sad. Homes were emptied of their contents in front of the weeping occupants by debt collectors. Wealthier children made fun of their poorer classmates for selling eggs or wearing grain sack dresses. Fathers snuck into soup kitchens for a warm meal but told their family that business was doing fine.

I may have been PMS-ing to be so emotional, or perhaps it was because I had recently heard that neighbors had left their home abruptly in the dark of night rather than wait for foreclosure proceedings to begin. Or, maybe it was the thought that heating prices this winter could get so high, we could be facing “New England’s own Katrina disaster“.

My kids did not shed a tear (although they did love the movie). To them, it was a tale of some long-ago time, back when women wore dresses and typewriters used ribbons of ink.

Come January, however, the concept of Americans really struggling to make ends meet not seem like a historical tale. I just hope that it never hits too close to home.

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Filed Under: Fairly Odd Kids, The Outside World 10 Comments

Yellow Bus Means GO!

August 7, 2008


I don’t know how you do it. I just don’t have that kind of patience.

Those words? I’ve heard them more times than I can count.

But, today, I turn those words back to you who will soon be getting up before it is bright to wake a bunch of sleeping children and then get them (go-go-go-go-go!) off to school.

This week, Belly started day camp. Day camp with a bus pickup and drop off. The first morning, she was so excited, she got up before my alarm and was dressed before my coffee was made. I still almost had a coronary trying to get the kids dressed-fed-out before the bus visited the end of our street.

I know we’ve gotten settled in our ways (our s-l-o-w morning ways), when all this activity before 8am makes me want to take a nap before noon (I did take one, yesterday. oh yes, I did).

And, then, there are all the details. Is her lunch ready? (no) Does she have two clean bathing suits and towels? (no) What did those papers in her backpack tell me to do? (can’t find) Did she brush her teeth? (she’s not even up yet lady)

You’d think that once she’s on the bus, I’d breathe easier. But, no. I then start thinking about what I can get done before the bus brings her home.

And then, it’s 4pm and she’s home, hungry and tired. A full-day of camp has been kicking her little seven-year-old butt. By 7:30, she can barely keep her eyes open; by 8, we usually have exhausted tears as she realizes that she needs to walk ALL THE WAY UP her bunk bed ladder to reach the pillow.

Does she love it though? Oh, yes, she does. And, I think it is worth the trouble which is a good thing since Jilly has already asked to be signed up for next year.


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Filed Under: Fairly Odd Kids, Homeschooling 8 Comments
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