A Day I Felt Especially Old

The kids have been ready to head back to school for weeks. Unfortunately, they had to wait until TODAY to start. It's been a long, boring August for 'em, that's for darn sure!

 

On the eve of TFDOS, everyone got tucked into bed by 9:30 (a respectable bedtime in our household). For 2 1/2 hours Jake and Em tried to fall asleep, but with no luck. My bedroom saw a lot traffic because of our family insomnia. I finally had to resort to giving them Melatonin so I could get this ready:

 

A "love note" from Mom



Old-school metal lunch boxes filled with candies and treats (see above note)

The goodies inside

 

6:00 came all to soon after our rough night. I was proud of the kids for getting up an ready on their own though. Since I didn't have to drag them kicking and screaming from their beds, I could focus on making their one and only hot breakfast for the school year: french toast.

 

I noticed Jacob wasn't tucking into his breakfast with his usual teenage gusto. I assumed it was my poor cooking again, but found that it was the Freshman butterflies instead. Poor guy! I'm sure visions of swirlies and locker stuffings danced in his head. I excused him from the table and fixed him up with a tummy-taming cocktail of meds. (Yep, I believe there's a pill for everything).

 

With only a little prodding I got a pictures of the kids to commemorate TFDOS.

 



Emma wouldn't show her braces at first!

Luckily I wore her down and got a REAL smile!

Here's Jacob. He's humoring me.

Ain't he 'andsome?

We didn't quite leave for school when we intended, so the drop off line of cars at Emma' junior high was backed up a quarter mile. I dropped her off at the back of the line so she could walk the rest of the way. I ducked down a side road and fled that crazy scene.

I thought I knew of a tricky way to unload Jake at the high school, but ended up having a Mr. Mom moment instead. Remember that scene when Michael Keaton drives the wrong way in the student drop off zone? Ya, that was me. I ended up in the back of another long line at the opposite side of the high school. Yeesh! Poor Jake was so frustrated with me by the time I dropped him at the right place. To his credit though, he did mumble an "I love you" before he scurried off to find his first class.

I was a little nervous for my chickens all day, especially my high school aged one. I also felt a little weary as I considered the fact that they'll both have flown the coop in 6 short years! How is that even possible?

Fortunately the kids came home happy and excited about their schedules. They liked most of their teachers too! Sure, they didn't get to all their classes on time, but they'll have it down by the end of the year, right?

My darling babies

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

It's the most wonderful time of the year (for parents). School's in session and Mom as her "me time" back. The kids are getting out the door early! The sun wasn't even up for Jake's first day photo. Doesn't he look thrilled to be up at 6 am?

Emma gets to sleep in an hour longer than her brother. She still managed to run late for the bus though. This was the only picture I could get of her before school:

Fortunately, she was still smiling after she got home. In fact, both kids reported that they liked their teachers and felt it was going to be a good year.

Several friends from my ward celebrated the first day of school with a tasty brunch at Scrambler Marie's. From left to right you'll see Cat, Angie, and Kelly:

That's my neighbor Emily with the two little boys. My friend Anita is on the right.

Susan is holding the sweetest baby ever, her daughter Kara. Jacob is her next oldest child on the end.

All in all, it was a pretty productive day. I washed 6 loads of laundry, read my scriptures, decorated my seminary classroom for 4 hours, and made dinner. Today was going at a pretty good clip too until I picked Jake up from football practice. He had been pushed from behind and caught his fall with his left wrist. It was giving him quite a bit of pain. I had my nurse friend Cat (see above picture) take a look and she suggested we have it looked at. After a few hours of icing it without improvement, we decided to have it checked out at the hospital by Dr. Dad. He didn't think it was broken, but decided to get a second opinion anyway. The other doc suggested we go ahead and x-ray it, but that was inconclusive too. Ultimately, they decided Jake may have a scaphoid fracture, so they splinted his wrist. He will have to be re-examined in a couple of weeks to determine additional treatment.

So, that might be the end of Jake's football career. He's pretty disappointed too since the coach told him today he was going to have him play first string defensive end at their first game next week. This also affects his participation in P.E. and orchestra. Fortunately, his writing hand is okay, so he won't miss out on all that 7th grade school work!