Back To School

(just a twee bit late with this one. They started school wayyyyyy back on August 18th. But i’m catching back up!)

 

Back to school time is always bittersweet for me. On the one hand i remember those days as a kid, getting the new school supplies, the shiny waxy new crayons all still lined up so nice in their box, the dozen no.2 pencils waiting to be sharpened, a new lunchbox (my fave was my softsided Strawberry Shortcake one. Man I can still smell that super-plasticky smell that i am sure was awesome to have my food drenched in…) (another side note, my lunchbox was apparently so rare that i can’t find a link to it ANYWHERE. They have a jillion of the metal ones, none of the softsided vinyl ones like i had. TRENDSETTER baby.)

anyways – for my own babies, I approach this back to school time of year with a mixture of feelings. Happy to have some sense of quiet order and schedule again with the two older ones gone, excited for all the fun new things they will be doing & new friends they make in their classes, sad that summer is ending and they will once again be spending most of their day with their teacher and not at home with me. (Not that i am all that exciting as moms go, and goodness knows the kind of excitement we DO get around here usually involves hospitals and medical procedures…) But it’s a weird mixed bag.

For this year, Kealey is going into 4th grade. I remember 4th grade. I remember it as “the year I learned there were individual leaves on trees and that the floor of the mall had actual separate bricks in it”. I got glasses. A WHOLE NEW WORLD literally opened up to me.  My mommy was my school teacher. Or she became my school teacher when our first teacher had some kind of mental breakdown. And I know she had a mental breakdown because a few days before she wasn’t our teacher anymore, she literally tied my ponytail to the back of my chair to force me to keep my head up off my desk while writing. (I think this was perhaps the pre-cursor to the eye dr appt wherewith i was equipped with spectacles.) And then the Challenger space shuttle blew up and my mom ran across the street to our house to get our little TV and plugged it in in the corner of our room and I remember watching that, and not quite knowing what was happening, but I remember it. I remember a lot of stuff about 4th grade. I remember mostly that it was the year i started being more “me”. Becoming myself.

I see this struggle in my baby girl. The arguments about clothes before school have already started.  The eye-rolling huffiness of not wanting to do her homework cause its “hard” have begun. She wants her hair straightened or braided or done a certain way and she is LOVING her new back to school outfits as she puts them together and she is just “becoming a big girl”. not a baby anymore. And I wonder when did this happen? She is in 4th grade, and has a teacher who is barely above legal drinking age and they are doing 5th grade work in most subjects (its some accelerated hoo-rah the school is trying to do blah blah blah), and i just want her to stay my baby.

And then there’s Karissa. *sigh*….still gathering clouds on a daily basis. I don’t think its really even hit her yet that she’s back in school and it means no more random pool parties or sleepovers on a whim. And that the homework is here to stay. And that yes she really DOES have to read her own directions/books/etc.

So far, things are going pretty well. Dance has not started yet, and this is sure to throw some kind of wrench into the otherwise semi-smooth after school goings-on.

In other news…

Kaylen gets to start dance tomorrow with big sissies. She is SO looking forward to this. It is finally something for HER to do. That is HERS.  She is such a crazy funny kid who is also growing up before my eyes. She is the age Karissa was when Kendall was born and I sometimes catch myself looking back on the past 3 years going – WHAT HAPPENED…. When did we all grow up? What’s going on? Who am I? Who are YOU? WHAT IS ALL THIS MEDICAL EQUIPMENT DOING IN MY HOUSE??!?!?!?! It’s a lot to process through on some days. But i think i am luckily finally at a place where i AM processing it. Trying to learn to adapt it still. Trying to soak in the good days and hold on to them during the bad ones. Kaylen is luckily a lot of comedic relief during these times. She says the craziest stuff sometimes and I just bust out laughing. And then she goes into her room and changes clothes 4 times and strews crap from here to heckandgone and makes me SO FRUSTRATEDDDDD!!!!!! Good thing she’s cute. And still takes naps.

And Kendall… poor sweet Kendall. The kid who faces crazy pain every day of her life with a brave face on. She is doing so good. I mean, not counting the fact that she isn’t peeing or pooping very well and eats probably less than a mouse on her own. Besides that, she’s happy. She’s mostly “healthy” (meaning we haven’t had a line infection scare in a good stretch). She is learning new vocabulary words or parroting back things we say at the funniest times. She has no idea of the concept of what she is doing, but she can count up to five if you start counting (this is a fun side effect of having your life be therapy!) She has a new obsession watching “bew-wee cork-cake” (Strawberry Shortcake – ahhhh my life has come full circle now!!!) Although fear not, she does still watch Hot-Gog. Except now in Spanish. Don’t ask. Netflix. That’s all I’m gonna say. Netflix. Today was a rough day for her. We bumped her forward in her feeds last nite and had a very very very nauseated and in lots of pain baby on our hands for most of the day. Even trying to push in her anti-nausea meds was causing some pretty extreme discomfort. And then we had to add in the typical Monday routine of dressing change/labs/therapies – oy. Not a pretty sight around here.  i really felt so bad for her. But in typical Kendall fashion, she just took herself out to a quiet corner of the room, pouted it off for a little bit, and then had a good nap. She’s such a good kid.

 

And that’s about all I have to say about that. mostly cause now i’m tired. And we have to get up and start the whole cycle all over again in a few hours!

 

 

 

thanks for stopping by!

 

terra