One day down!

Two posts in one day...a bit much.  Yet the after is short and sweet.

A few highlights about their first day.
1) Ms. D can make friends with a rock.  Nobody wanted to talk to her today, except H,J,A,K,.....
2) Both boys the Ethanator knows are in the other class, but he's okay with that.  He's a bit disgruntled to have homework on the very first day.  (Welcome to life, kid.)
3) Princess P isn't sure what to think about school yet, but she certainly enjoyed the walk home!  Oh, and her teacher is the only friend whose name she can remember in her class.
4) And the sixth grader?  I could barely get him to name his classmates, much less tell me how his day was.

And what did mom do?  Well, the kindie and the 8th grader are still home today.  So we went for a teen haircut and ate lunch at Taco Bell.  Tomorrow there will be only one.  And after that, quiet mornings to come.

Welcome to the 2012-2013 school year.

Today is the first day for four of our kids, and the kindie meet and greet conferences.   Around 6:45 when I was trying to get the baked oatmeal for breakfast in the oven, the first kid bounds in!
"What's for breakfast?"
"I'm making baked oatmeal.  It should be ready around 7:30."
"Can I have cereal now?"
"You can wait."
"Can I make my lunch?"
"We need to clean out the lunch boxes first.  They've been stored a while."
"Can I do that?"
"Sure, whatever."  (Translates, just let me get the oatmeal in the oven, pleeeaaaase!)
Repeat this conversation at 6:50 and 6:55...and back to the first kid at seven....except wait, one of these little badgers doesn't start school until Wednesday!  He doesn't need a lunch!

"Mom, can I have yogurt in my lunch?"
"Mom, will you cut up the watermelon?"
"Mom, where's the hairbrush?"

Uh, you guys know Dad is still here too, right?


Hey, where's Ms. D and E1.  Somebody better go wake them up!

"Mom, I can't find any socks!  Never mind.  They're in my drawer."

"Change your shirt.  What's the rule for the first day of school?"
"It has to have a collar.  Really?"
"Really. You can wear your angry birds t tomorrow. (or sonic, or hello kitty....)"
"Lose the athletic shorts too.  Khakis or denim today.  Okay?"

"Okay!  We're ready!"
"Guys.  It's only 7:30.  They won't even let you in until 8.  Sit down and eat your baked oatmeal."
"It has whipped cream on it!  Wow, thanks mom."
"Hey, it's the first day of school.  We have two more first days of school this week, so that means two more hot breakfasts.  Aren't we all lucky here?"
"Can we have pancakes twice?"
(Ha!) "No.  I believe canned cinnamon rolls are on the menu for tomorrow.  Maybe eggs."
"How about waffles?"  (Okay kid.  Ya deaf.  What time do you think I'm getting up?)

Because of the heavy, supply-laden packs I generously offer to drive them today.  Pulling out of the driveway I scraped the bumper on the side porch.  This is not hard to do.  At least I didn't back into the rock wall again.  So you can just imagine the van ride conversation.  I already was feeling kinda off, w/ Dad dropping off the sixth grader and all.  (Mr. nonverbal still hasn't given me a drop-off report, or picture.  He probably didn't take one...even though it's sixth grade, and our last kid in that school.  Men.)

I park on the street perpendicular to the school.  We all unload.
"Hey, I told you guys to wait.  Mr. 4th grader, you need to keep your first grade sister with you.  I will be walking to school with you until you do!" (Eye roll, smirk, then semi-glare.  He does slow down and take her hand though.  I call that a win.)
We get to the door.
"I love you guys.  Have a great day! Not you littlest man, you stay with me!  Your first day isn't until Wednesday."

Then Si guy and I head to Kindergarten.  His teacher is Ms. J.  I walk in the room.  There are frogs everywhere, just like in Mrs. S room at our old school.  He unloads his supplies, and has a frog to color while she has her meeting....except he's done coloring before it starts.  She has books there for him to look at, but reading silently isn't his strong point.  So now all the parents know Si already can recognize his letters and a few words. I turn over his frog so he can draw, but he spills his crayons.  Yet he gets down and picks them up without being asked.  Thankfully, at about this point, she ends her speech, reiterating the importance of coming to back-to-school-night to sign up for stuff.
He is impressed by the faucet thingies that turn the classroom sinks into drinking fountains, the snap-together popsicle letters, and the "Mom!  She has legos!" moment was my favorite.  He has to touch everything.
"Mom what's this? It looks like a hand!"
"It's a pointer."  He uses it to point to the numbers on the calendar.
"13!  Mom, there's 13!"
"Uh-huh.  That's the date today.  August 13th. Look she has the numbers up to the first day of school.  What number is that?
"55!"
"Uh, no honey.  It's 15.  Two days from now is the fifteenth.  That's your first day."
"Yay!"
"It's time to go now.  She's going to have another group soon."
I predict I'm going to have to say that exact sentence again in May.

The great thing about hearts

        Hearts are like the "lockers" in the Percy Jackson books.  It is unbelievable how much we can stuff in there.  We are reminded of this every time we have another child.  How can we possibly love this tiny person as much as the amazing kids we already have?  Yet we always do.  Sometimes we even grow to love all of them even more.
       Yet last weekend I was devastated by a letter.  My kindie would be unable to attend the same fabulous school his siblings had attended since we moved back to KC about six years ago.  Last summer, we moved a little bit east, so it was a transfer to attend there.  This year there are already sixty in K.  There is no room.
     So we went through some stages of grief.  First denial.  A phone call to the district going "what do you mean there's no room?"  Well, they meant there's no room.  20 kids per class is a pretty full kindergarten.
Then there was anger and confusion.  How many kids should we move?  How could we handle two drop offs?  This was outrageous, insane!  Next of course, was acceptance.
   I walked down to the new school and roamed the building.  At this point I still wasn't sure how many kids to send with him.  Then I saw the library.  Yes folks, bibliophilic art freak I am, it was the library that pushed me over the line.  I must have spent half an hour in there, just taking it in:  the bronze sculptures on top of the shelves, the three shelves per grade level of chat 'n chew books, the mix of "pop" kids books and literature, the state symbols painted on the wall and two story ceiling, the "surprise art" on the shelves with books and "street signs" named after authors.  The books pictured clinched it for my third grade daughter.
I will always love our first elementary in a special way.  It's just my heart has grown, and I'm starting to love this one too.

I'm taking the teen to a movie tonight.

Our oldest just returned from Bartle on Wednesday.  He leaves again, this time for a missions trip, tomorrow.  He chose to hang around at home yesterday, and had a friend over today.  It's nice having him around.  He really hasn't been around much this summer.
His summer started w/ a two week Shakespeare camp.  Oh how he loves acting!  Especially when he gets to be a ham.
That wrapped up and he was off to church camp.  He was home for about a week...and then Bartle.
Tomorrow I have to let him go again....and I know that every summer from here on out is really just preparation for the BIG letting go.  I'm so thankful that's a few more years out.
He's here now though, so tonight we go to a movie.

A tale of two pool trips.

This summer my kids have been rotating between here, camps, and grandparents...so every week it's a different mix.  We have season super-passes to the local outdoor pools.  The kids can count on swimming about twice a week when they're home.
Early in the summer, it was just me and E1 a lot.  We'd go to the pool.  I'd take a book.  Read a little,doze a little, watch him dive and slide, and occasionally hop in the water to meet the kids he was playing with and cool off.  It was fun and relaxing.  My kid was happy I was there, but happy to be "on his own" for the most part.  I sensed if I tried to be "too close" it might backfire.
Yesterday, I took the youngest three to the pool.  I didn't even bother to bring a book.  I was in the water pretty much the whole time, except when I watching Ms. D dive and Princess P & Si Guy go down the big kid slides.  In the water, I was a log, a frog chasing flies to eat, a frog being chased by a snake, and a snake ramming against a lobster shaped "rock" trying to knock a frog into the water.  I adjusted goggles and found diving sticks.  I gave "rides" on my legs under the water.  I was exhausted by the time I came home.  It was great fun.  As time goes on there will be fewer days like this, and more drop offs or just hanging back with a book.
Today, my three oldest get home from camps, and for two whole days I'll have all six of them before my oldest goes on a mission trip.  I wonder what those two days will have in store.

Happy where we are, fifteen years in.

     Today Mr. Man & I have been married fifteen years.  We have moved ten times.  The home we're in now we believe is "forever", but that doesn't mean we don't appreciate the other places we've stopped in our journey along the way.
    Our first place was a furnished summer sub-lease, which we found out after moving in, hadn't been approved by the owners.  They graciously let us stay. It was a beautiful place to get our start as us.  
The next place we were offered was a trailer.  It was $100 a month for a reason.  Tiny, twenty minutes into nowhere, spongy floors, and an oven that didn't work.  We were so grateful for the toaster oven we received as a wedding present!  This is the place that made every single one since look like a castle.
Then there was an opening in on-campus married housing.  A larger apartment, with classy vinyl furniture, tile floors, and metal cabinets in the kitchen.  The first night the mattress sank into a U.  Campus living at it's finest.  
       And all that was just the first six months.
       By our first anniversary, we had been living in Lawrence another six months.  My in-laws were our landlords, graciously allowing us to abide in a beautiful white 2 story, 4 bedroom house.  It had a huge combined living/dining room, and a front porch with a swing.  One caveat, the only room with a/c was our bedroom.  Due in early November with our first child, I spent a lot of time in there.
Shortly after our first anniversary Mr. Man got his first real job in Topeka, so we moved yet again...this time to a huge one bedroom apartment.  I loved that apartment.  That apartment is where our "real lives" took off.  It's where we lived when our first son was born.  It was where we met the best friend a new mom could have, Marmee.  When the baby was about a week old, I felt like superwoman.  I was going to be the perfect wife, and make husband beef stew from scratch to surprise him after work on his first day back.  Never has a neighbor across the hall who wants to hold a baby been more welcome.  She was my best friend for the next eight years, and we still try to stay in touch.
       At the end of a year, we realized we needed space.  Marmee's brother bought a house for us to rent.  It was a three bedroom ranch with a mostly fenced back yard, and laundry in the kitchen, the perfect home for our growing family.  The following June, E1 came to join us.  We got a dog.  We had a garden, flowers in front, vegetables in back.  Eventually though, we got the itch to own.  Marmee's health was starting to decline too. The second floor apartment was getting to be too much.  Mutually it was agreed, we'd buy a house and Marmee would move into the rental.
         Instead of buying a house, we ended up building one.  Some people say that's the big marriage "test".  I felt it was more of an adventure.  Mr. Man & I agreed on pretty much everything, except the color for the exterior of the home.  I submitted to his preference gladly, for rarely do we disagree.  The realtor wasn't too happy about the blue carpet, but I didn't do brown, and he wouldn't do grey.  We both liked blue.  We had a couple more kids, added a ferret, and had July 4th parties in our front yard.  It was the american dream.  I could write a book about the idyllic years in that home from our kids point of view.  Unfortunately, we really couldn't afford to stay, so  pregnant with our fifth child, we moved again.
      This time from the american dream to the american nightmare...except I really, really, loved that house.  I just wish we could have transplanted it into a better neighborhood.  It was a huge, sprawling four bedroom traditional two story.  We had a nice sized living area, and a "real" dining room.  The floors in two of the bedrooms were wood.  It had a covered front porch that caught cool breezes on hot days.  The kids could ride their trikes on the sidewalk in front of the house for hours.  We only had to walk about a block to go the park.  On the downside, Mr. Man fell through the stairs to the basement once doing laundry.  We had to pick up broken glass from the yard and watch the kids every second they were outside.  Somebody broke in and robbed us through our bedroom window, which we then noticed did not have a lock.  We heard gunshots once or twice, from about a block south.  The kitchen counters weren't anchored to the wall.  The kitchen pipes froze in the winter, and our bedroom was built on without insulation.  When we checked once in the winter, the temp in our bedroom was forty degrees.  (The kids rooms were fine.  They were in the original part of the house.  Our gas bills, not so much.)  In the summer, our only a/c was a window unit my parents gave us, so we spent a lot of time at the pool, the mall, and the library.  We moved in in November.  The following August, Mr. man had a new job in KC.  We got to move back "home", to where both our roots were.
      We had found a family to replace us on Clay, but we had two weeks to find a new place...a new, four bedroom place that wouldn't mind five young children living there.  We had our work cut out for us.  In the end, we had two options, JoCo or Northland.  Close to where we grew up, or close to work.  In the end, having to go through a garage to get to a bedroom was the deciding factor, and we chose the home close to home.  About a week after moving in, I found out I was pregnant with our sixth child.  So, that home was already marked special.  The friends I made through the school made it even more so.  Eventually though, the disrepair the house was in overcame the location and layout.  It was time to move again.
    So here we are, in our "forever" home, courtesy of my in-laws.  The house couldn't suit us better.  It has five bedrooms, a formal dining room, a porch on the side, & a huge deck with built in seating.  They playground is shaded in the morning, a fact I appreciate especially today, as I'm watching Si out on the slide.
This is where we'll build our story.  Indeed, each of those homes holds many stories about us, and maybe someday I'll share them.  The story of us is a beautiful thing.

My daughter is 8?

Thankfully she still has a couple more years of being more child than adolescent, I think.  

Her favorite things tell a lot about her.

Her Bible.  It lives in her bed.   She reads it daily and sleeps with it nightly.

Her princess doll assortment.  The newer ones even have their clothes on!

Books.  Books are everywhere.  Sometimes we read aloud Louisa May Alcott, or Laura Wilder.  She reads Diary of a Wimpy Kid and the Middle Moffat   .A lot of times she reads to her sister too.  After all, it's not that she still loves Pinkalicious!  

Creative stuff.  Our girls have markers and make up to play with.

and that's just what's in her room!