This is our second week of being back to school, and I’m feeling a little lost trying to set the new routine, but I’m thrilled that it wasn’t nearly as difficult as I anticipated it would be. During the summer we were all burning some serious midnight (and beyond) oil, but we managed to pull it together a little during the last week of summer. Melanie was off to sleep-away camp, where they were up with the birds, or bears, or whatever woodsy creature is the early riser up in cottage country. Maddy spent the week going on outings with her respite worker. And Lizzie and I forced ourselves out of bed each morning, but were rewarded with fun (and exhausting) adventures in driving, shopping, and fried food eating. Which made for a more reasonable bedtime/coma.
While the mornings are still far from easy, we are doing pretty well considering rising at 10am took seven alarms and an act of God, just last month. Melanie and Lizzie are even making their own lunches! It’s amazing how much easier it is to make one lunch than it is three. Even when it’s for the picky eater of the house.
Maddy moved up to the older lifeskills class this year, and the transition is going very well, with Maddy thriving in the more structured environment, with high expectations from a seasoned, and yet still extremely passionate teacher. I think that finding someone like that is like finding a unicorn (a real one, I mean, because I’m seriously being overrun with the stuffed and glittery versions over here). To be doing a job for enough years to make you confident and knowledgeable about what should be done, and yet still full of excitement…that’s special.
I lose interest in projects after a week. Even this blog post is taking too long to hold my attention. So maybe I’m not the best judge of the whole situation.
But I have only heard wonderful things about this teacher, both from other parents and from the staff who have worked with her. And I saw the graduating parents last year saying a very reluctant goodbye, with expressions exactly like mine when our time at Woodview for IBI was over. I wasn’t close enough to hear whether they also threatened to chain themselves to the school or not.
Our school goes from kindergarten to grade 8, so although my kids aren’t technically in middle school, I still am in shock that I have two in grade 7 and one graduating and heading to high school next year. And although I am loving the people that they are, and the stage that we are in, where they are becoming more and more capable, and so interesting to have conversations with, a part of me wants to put the brakes on and rewind to when they all fit in my lap for cuddles, they didn’t have homework I didn’t understand and giant binders to carry around, and they ate goldfish crackers instead of stealing the leftover meatloaf for their thermoses.
Or at the very least, let me slow down time over the next year before they grow up too fast when I’m not looking.
And maybe save me some of the meatloaf.
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