And they're back!

Apparently I wrote this... and promptly forgot to post it. Huh. Weird. Here it is, a month later :)

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After what was officially the longest summer break ever  my kids are back in school. School in Louisiana ended on May 22nd. School in Oregon began September 4th. Yup. Three full months (plus one week and 6 days, but who's counting?) of summer break. Of course I didn't have to fill that time with educational outings or creative play or even really have to deal with "I'm boooored" (On auto repeat. Spoken in Whinese) ... much. Our summer break was jam packed with chaos which I'm still attempting to blog about. It involved getting a job offer, packing a house, taking a quick trip to Florida, then driving across the country, spending a month in Utah, moving to Oregon and unpacking. Whew. It was action packed and exhausting. And it felt like it lasted f-o-r-e-v-e-r.

But I've earned my rest!

Last week I saw ALL FOUR of my kids out the door to school! Molly has started her educational career as a brand new kindergartner! She only goes for PM kindergarten, but for the first time in almost 16 years, I have an honest to goodness 2 1/2 hrs every weekday to schedule however I see fit... sans children. If I'm being honest I feel a little lost right now, and we're still getting into the swing of the overall schedule, but I'm giddy thinking about the possibilities. A girl can play a whole lot of Candy Crush get a whole lot done in 2 1/2 hours every day!

Here are the kiddos and their signs on the first day of school. It may seem out of order but this is the order in which the kids leave for the day. Let me just tell you, I feel like my entire morning revolves around getting people out the door and into the world...one at a time. We start with Ben who leaves the house at 6:55 a.m. to catch the bus and head off to high school.

His actual feelings about heading off to school...

His fine-mom-I'll-pose-with-your-stupid-sign pose...

Next out the door is Toby at 7:40. He also catches a bus and he heads off to the elementary school as a big bad third grader this year.

Genuinely excited about school! This kid makes me grin.

Had to pose a second time because I wanted to show the cute, cute
shirt he chose to wear for his first day of school. It's a Sew Sara creation,
and he's gotten what he calls a "number shirt" every year for his birthday
since he turned 3 and knew what numbers were. My dear friend Sara makes such
fun creations and has helped me outfit my birthday boy every year. You can find her
goodies for sale in her Etsy store HERE or see her other amazing creations on her blog HERE.

 Next up and out... Brady! Heading to MIDDLE SCHOOL this year!! 6th grade in middle school caught us all a little off guard since the last 2 places we've lived had 6th grade in elementary. I felt a bit like I was throwing my poor boy to the wolves, but he was excited. The most intimidating experience of middle school so far was learning how to operate his locker. He mastered that (after about 30 tries on back-to-school night) so we're hopeful that's the biggest obstacle he has to conquer. Brady heads out the door at 8:30 and rides his bike to school.

We're blessed to live adjacent to this amazing trail and the trail happens to lead
right to his school about a mile away. He "practiced" the ride about a dozen times
the week leading up to school starting hehehe.

So yeah, if you were doing the clock math... it takes 2 full hours to get the three boys out the door in the morning. Wake Ben at 6:30 and finally send Brady off at 8:30. It's the looooooooongest morning of school prep EVER. It's not chaotic or rushed, for which I'm very grateful. But I definitely feel like I'm having the hours sucked out of my life by how long our morning departure process is. And on Wednesdays Brady doesn't even leave until 9:30 - so Wednesdays take three hours to get the boys out the door. At least on that day the chunk of time between kid departures is big enough that I can actually go back to bed and catch a few Zzzz for a while.

And then finally at about 11:20 we get this little lady out the door and onto the school bus to head to Kindergarten. She is in absolute heaven. She couldn't possibly have been more excited to finally go to school! In fact the morning of her first day she basically spent her time singing an ode to the first day of school on constant replay. I managed to catch a snippet of her singing without her realizing it. When she busts out the "holla!"s I thought I was going to die laughing. She's nothing if not enthusiastic, this one!

Her very first sign. (And my last Kindy sign to make?! I'm not sure
whether to cry or to cheer...)

Look at that excitement!

She was almost as excited about riding the bus as she was
about going to school in general.

And then of course, since I had turned into a blubbering idiot after she boarded the bus and headed off to school, I felt a little mama bear protective instinct kick in and I hopped into my van and drove up to the school to see her get off the bus too. The look on her face was a mixture of surprise and annoyance hehehe. She was so excited to be independent so I was definitely crossing a line by being there waiting for her! But it was actually a good thing I'd headed to the school because the office staff member who was supposed to meet the PM Kindergartners was nowhere to be found and that little group of kids were clueless and nervous and didn't have any idea what they were supposed to do or where they were supposed to go. I was able to get them to the office, voiced my concern over the lack of supervision for these brand new students, and then escorted Molly to class myself. She had been a little shaken up by the moment of confusion when she didn't know where to go, so I was glad to be there with her and calm her back down and help her excitement return. Needless to say, an email expressing my concern was sent to  the principal about the lack of supervision and direction for the brand new students on their first day of school, and thankfully in less than an hour I received a very sincere apology and detailed plan of action for the following day. All's well that ends well. I don't think I even came across as that mom in my original email so I think it's all good.

So I officially have four kids out the door every day for school!!! I get 2 1/2 hrs of solitude before the home-from-school-and-time-for-homework routine kicks in. Whew! Happy days.