First Day Favorites

Before any of us were at all ready for it, the first day of school was upon us. It was a big day for Mikey as it was his first day of middle school (dun dun dun), a big day for Allie as it was her first day of her final year of elementary school, a big day for Lauren and Jonah as it was both their first day at a new elementary school, and a big day for ME as it was my first day juggling three different schools with three drop off times and four different pick up times. Yes, it was nuts.

Kind of a long story, but after some back and forth, some praying, some tears, some extra explaining, our school district allowed us to send Mikey and Allie to the middle school where all their friends from elementary school were going. (The district had sent us to a different elementary school than our assigned home school when we first moved here because they didn’t have space in the first grade for Allie at the time.) But they said since there were three grades in between Allie and Lauren, which meant they would not be at middle school together, they could not extend the middle school offer to our younger two. Since Lauren was going into second and Jonah into TK, we figured that would give them plenty of time to make new friends and us plenty of time to figure out what we wanted to do for middle school for them.

Buuut, since Allie would be following Mikey to the same middle school a year later, I wanted her to be able to finish out elementary school with her friends instead of making her switch to a new school for just one year. Which meant I had to be okay with a crazy schedule for that year. Just one year I told myself.

And that is how I ended up being basically a bus driver with a set route everyday. Amazing how simultaneously fast and maddeningly slow a year can be.

And thank the Lord, I left no man, er CHILD, behind that whole year. With nary a single tardy, I’d like to add! But several more gray hairs and wrinkles, I must also confess.

Which also has something to do with how and why I got so far behind here. I just mainly remember being tired a lot. And frazzled. And confused about a great many things.

Anyhoo, here we are with First Day Favorites from 2016! I was going to skip this post entirely since it’s been so long, but it ended up being pretty interesting to hear what the kids remember about themselves from a year and a half ago. No idea how accurate this is, as it sounds suspiciously similar to things they are in to these days, but hey, we tried.

I didn’t get a picture of all four kids together because Mikey’s school started earlier than the other kids. So starting with this year, the kids don’t all get ready together on school mornings anymore. Which was a little sad, but was kinda nice and peaceful to have a little time with just Mikey in the early morning. And because it was all valet line drop offs in order to get to the next school(s) to avoid any and all tardies, there were also no first day pictures at any of their schools or with their new teachers or anything. Boo. But that was the story of that crazy year.