First Day Pictures

Introducing:  The second grader.  He’s incredibly excited about this school year because he has a set of teachers who are wonderful and amazing, and the ultimate favorite teachers ever of two of his older siblings.  It’s going to be a great fit for my school-loving guy.  He’s come home all week just bouncing with happiness.  

Introducing:  The sixth grader, the eighth grader, and the eleventh grader.

An hour later these three were ready to take off.  Two headed to middle school, and then twenty minutes later the last one headed to catch the bus to the high school. They decided to cooperate moderately and take first day of school pictures together.  As always, they were in rare form.  The middle schoolers were actually really happy to get back to school.  The high schooler was somewhat filled with dread. 

This year back to school was kind of tough for me.  Every year I get more grumpy about it, wishing summer could last a little longer, and feeling frustrated that there were so many things I wanted to do with my kidlets that we didn’t get around to doing.  Dr. Peds just shakes his head at me, because when I was a kid, a teenager, a college student, and a teacher myself, I could not wait for back to school!  I relished every part of it!  And now I just dislike it sooooooo much.   I even bought myself flowers at the grocery store two days before school started to try to cheer myself up, and there were lots of tears on my part on Back to School Eve, until I finally kicked myself out of the house and went for a long walk to get rid of my grumpy attitude.  It was pretty ridiculous.

As always, though, a few days into the grind, I’m feeling a lot better.  Structure isn’t necessarily bad, in fact, it usually increases my productivity even though I sometimes feel trapped by the family schedule.  Everyone thrived during their first week, and because I wasn’t teaching this week, I managed to get caught up on some massive tasks that needed to be completed.  Next week I will be welcoming back piano students who did not take summer lessons, and that is always fun.