The First Day of School

Mandatory first-day-of-school pictures were NOT popular this year.  Not popular at all.  Thankfully I’m used to being a not popular person, and I took back to school pictures anyway.  

The Banana is in third grade.  Even though she was grumpy about taking her pictures, she was super excited to get back to school, a place she loves.  She was definitely ready. 

Mr. Sneaky Pants is in fifth grade.  Luckily for him, last year he was in a fourth and fifth grade split class, so he has a pretty good idea of how things work in the fifth grade, and didn’t seem worried.  

They didn’t want me to walk to the bus stop with them even though EVERY OTHER FAMILY in the neighborhood goes to the bus stop on the first day of school.  I came anyway.

YaYa is still enjoying the fact that she gets to leave for school an entire hour later than her siblings.  I am STRICTLY forbidden from showing up at the middle school bus stop, but I forced her to let me snap just a couple of pictures before she zipped down the sidewalk by threatening to show up at the bus stop if I didn’t get a good picture in the yard.   That expression on the right . . . that’s a bit of concern about what embarrassing thing I might do next.  

Thankfully, my kidlets were mostly ready to go back to school, I think.  They were much more ready than I was!  Stepping into the hectic fall schedule has become increasingly more tricky for me in recent years.  I used to LOVE going back to school when I was a student.  I even loved it as a teacher, even though there was so much work involved.  But I do not love it as a mom, for many, many reasons.  I know from previous experience, though, that I will feel much better about it in a few weeks when we’ve settled into routine again.  Routine is beautiful, although it’s awfully fun to step away from it during the summer.