FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!

Oh my goodness! I never thought it would get here! It has finally arrived, it's MY DAY, almost better than my birthday... the first day of school. When the kids, who have been bored out of their minds for 5-6 weeks, finally get something to do!!!

and it's only been 2 weeks since my last post... still not bad, right? :o) Now that the kids are back in school, I will have more time, so hopefully I will be able to post more often. Plus, it's when school is in that there's more drama. (I'll have to fill you in on the awful details of last year later!)

The last two weeks have been "blow and go"... D1 had church camp, which takes a full day to get everything packed just so, hide the little messages from mom and dad for surprise hugs while she's gone, and lots of fret wondering if she's okay while she's gone. And the boys started football practice the week before she left.

Not to mention the junior high had schedule pickup while her and her friends were at camp. That presented another problem in itself. How were they supposed to compare schedules and find out if they were in any of the same classes or lunch if they were out in the woods of Texas with NO CELL PHONE! (yes, that's right, they actually survived without their cells for one whole week... 5 days actually. And no, D1 doesn't have one, but many of her friends do; I can't figure that one out... D1 doesn't even like to talk on the phone) But the girls made arrangements to use a sponsor's phone to call one mom, who had all of the schedules written down - it worked out quite well and relieved some serious pre-teen stress while they were away. Of course my baby, being in all honors classes, didn't have a single class with any of her close circle of friends! Remember how horrifying that was. Not to worry, D1 is really loved by all (no exaggeration here) so she'll be fine, but it would have been nice to be with those she hangs out with most.

The boys football has been interesting. They are awfully cute! Not that I'm professing to be a football expert, but it looks to me like our team kinda sucks. We are allowed 3 practices a week, but our coach decided parents didn't want to come out for practice on Friday nights (I would agree with that once school started, but for the first few weeks why not? We need the practice) So for the first few weeks we only had practice on Tuesday and Thursday, which was great because D1's cheer practice is on Mondays and Wednesdays. THEN we had our first scrimmage... against the team who practices next to us on the field. They've been running plays and catching throws since practices started. Turns out the coach of that team was the star quarterback for our little town back in the day, then went on to SHSU and graduated with a coaching degree! Talk about a team being "stacked". Our coach decided we needed to call a 3rd practice during the week, so now we have Wed. night football as well.

It wasn't bad when the kids weren't in school, but now I'm having a hard time figuring a Wed. schedule.... the boys get off the bus at 3:45, and we have to leave here by 4:45 to drop them at hubbies office and then make it to cheer at 5:30. Where in the world do I fit in eating?!! I think 4:00 is a little early for dinner and we don't have time after all of our practices because by then it's definitely BEDTIME. There's no way the kids can go to bed any later... the boys have always been a 7:30 bedtime, we are trying an 8:00 this year (the rule is they have to be able to get up at 6:30 or else we move bedtime back the same number of minutes they sleep in) And the Junior High starts at 7:20am (is that not the crulest thing you've ever heard of?) So D1 and I are up at 5:30 in the morning!!! I DON'T LIKE IT!! I've only done it for 2 days now, and I'm dragging butt. So she has to get in bed by 9:00 so she can get enough sleep. I guess I'll figure it out, I just hate being so harried.

Last week was especially busy - although I was hoping to have a very mild and easy week-before-school. D1 had choreography at cheer on Wed., Thur, and Fri from 1-4:30 so we'd leave from there and go straight to the fields for the boys football. Then there were back-to-school haircuts (even though the boys are growing theirs out into that shaggy-boy look. yuck.) and 2 PTO meetings. We had a church camp afterparty right after cheer on Friday night, and then I dropped everyone at home and headed over to a friends for a Pampered Chef party ( I really hate those things, any of them, I just don't like going). Saturday morning was a couple of hours at Meet the Teacher for the boys (which I got the teacher I really really wanted! YEAH!) followed by the varsity football teams' Meet the Bears. Phew! I really didn't think I would survive, but alas, I did. Thank goodness, cause I don't think there is anyone else who could keep up with it!

On a good note, the Junior High accepted D1's cheer company for private PE... which means she doesn't have to take PE at school! How I wish they'd had that when I was in school. I absolutely hated PE -- not the exercise, it was the PE uniforms and dressing out... wearing the awful uniform everyday for a week and only getting to wash it once. There has got to be some health code violation there. Well, things haven't changed much at junior high, they still only wash the uniform once a week, but I don't think it's as prison uniform looking as what we wore. In having private PE, D1 got put into a second elective. Unfortunately, she didn't really get to choose, the school just put her into an elective that was during 4th period when she was scheduled for PE. This semester is pretty good, she'll have Modern Technology. But next semester they have her in keyboarding... which is bad. She's been typing since 2nd grade, she types about 60 words a minute (which without a doubt is the fastest typer in 7th grade), and completed the entire Mavis Beacon typing program last year in record time. Why in the world would she need to bother with a keyboarding class? Guess I'm going to have to talk to the school about that one.

Well, seems like I've rambled long enough. Just trying to catch you up on the going's-on. I will try to be better so I don't have to post such terribly long ones in the future!