First Day of School

I did everything I could to prepare for this day. Clothes and shoes were laid out. Lunches were prepared. Supplies were purchased, divided and loaded into backpacks (and even turned into teachers ahead of time where possible). And still, Sunday night found me hunting AWOL water bottle tops after the children had gone to sleep. How can water bottle tops disappear over the course of a summer? Oh the black hole that is my house.

Because this weekend was stake conference, we got extra time with Dad--a grand and unusual blessing indeed. We had grilled burgers and corn on the cob and each child received priesthood blessings from their dad to begin the school year. We resuscitated our daily scripture reading with dad (the summer had become catch as catch can since dad's schedule didn't intersect with the family's loosey goosey one). We ate frozen custard and once and future students were trundled off to bed at a responsible time (and there wasn't much complaining since we had to be up early for the stake conference--another blessing!)

The next morning,

everyone dressed for school and we began the return to routine. CE had her one late morning--middle school will now begin after elementary school by 55 minutes, but she has an early leadership class that begins on the second day of school, so today was the only day the lateness really affected her. M, the boys and I walked to school. CW could not be bothered to stay with the group. You'd think he liked school or something . . . Z dutifully stayed with the rest of us, since he will have the responsible job of dropping and retrieving Bam from his kindergarten dot each day. Bam chatted amiably with a friend and neighbor about backpacks and quarters for chocolate milk. Once we arrived at school and I deposited his brothers, Bam began to get nervous. The luck of the draw has Bam in a class with NO ONE he knew previously. This boy here with Bam:

--never met him.

These children lined up with Bam to go inside:
--never seen any of them before.

But, true to the resilience that is Bam, despite the fact that he still knows no one's name, he said he had a good day at school with many new and exciting things to tell me about lunch, PE and homework that he didn't have today.

School was relatively old hat for everyone else. CW came home and immediately did all his homework for the week. Yes, he scares me sometimes. Z did the bare minimum and CE set about doing homework and organizing her supplies for the rarified world that is middle school. M and I are in new territory. It is just us all day until her preschool begins next week, but even then, with preschool only two mornings a week, we are alone together most of the time. I don't think she knows quite what to do with the mommy time. She told a friend of mine today that we were going swimming and then groceries. So, we went swimming and got groceries, made after school cookies and then it was time to retrieve boys (the first day of school is the only day I go get them, otherwise they're self-sufficient). I wonder what she has planned for us tomorrow!

I like school. I love that my kidlets adore learning and school and the structure that school brings. I have never yet been that parent who cried when the kindergarten teacher read The Kissing Hand. For me, I found it strangely liberating that this time at the kindergarten drop off, I only had one child to take home with me--usually it's two, or one with an enormously pregnant belly. One 3 year old to sit quietly through a story with is cake. I went to the Boo Hoo Breakfast because Bam told me to and because I knew M would love the teeny tiny pastries Panera Bread donated for the occasion (really, who doesn't love mini chocolate croissants and orange frosted pastries and tiny fruit tarts?)

Now I don't love homework (and some years are worse than others for wrestling with the dreaded H word) but I love seeing my children discover new bits of knowledge, wrestle with grammar and penmanship, master long division and quadratic formulas and inhale literature and artistic endeavors. I also love the forced structure that school brings: we have to have the backpack packing, lunch making, homework doing, outfit planning down to somewhat of a science or our world with 5 students would become chaotic and unsuccessful.

Despite all my mother's best intentions, I do not take easily to structure. Too little and I am lost, like anyone, but too much scheduling, too much structure and I begin to feel claustrophobic and suffocated. Intrinsic structure isn't something I manage well; it has to be extrinsic. School seems to provide the perfect ebb and flow of structure. Hopefully it will be a welcome nudge in our search for order this year.