Is The Week Over Yet?

It has not been a good week at the Honest & Truly household.

On Tuesday, we brought the Square Jams to Mister Man's school to give to his teachers. I was proud of myself as I placed them onto the seat next to me as I drove carpool that morning. They had to be there that day since the next day was a PTO luncheon, and who wants three day old dessert on Thursday?

As we pulled away from Mister Man's school to head to Little Miss's school, I saw them still sitting on the seat next to me. I don't have spare time when getting everyone to school to actually stop and go inside the school when dropping them off, let alone once they've left the car, so I sighed and resigned myself to making a trip back to his school later in the day - because, you know, I didn't have anything else to do.

Pulling into Little Miss's school, I reached over to grab her backpack from the seat next to me. It wasn't there.
Ahhh, Little Miss, do you have your backpack in the seat back by you? I asked my child who sits in the way back where her carseat fits - and yes, she is five and a half and still riding in a five point harness car seat.
Ummmm, she looked wildly from left to right, and my heart began to sink.
Peanut, where is your backpack?
I think I forgot it at home, Mommy, she wailed piteously.

And apparently another trip was in order. I wouldn't do it for forgotten homework, but since she can't eat the school lunch and her snack was also in the backpack, I mentally added another forty plus minute round trip to my day.

I was headed downtown for a 3pm event, so I may sure to catch the 1 o'clock hour train so I had time to get there. After rushing around to make the train, I parked and paid my fee. Odd, no one was at the station. Usually, there's at least one other person waiting for the train. I looked at the schedule. There is a train every hour from 5am to 12am. Except 1pm. And so I drove.

On Wednesday, I arrived at Mister Man's school with my Spanish Rice a little late because the rice had refused to cook and was still a little ummm crunchy. At least I arrived, right?

As I walked through the halls, I saw children headed to gym. That's when I realized it was Wednesday and that it was possible that Mister Man had forgotten to wear his full uniform with the white shirt and instead was wearing a red shirt. For the first time in his two years at the school. Eh, he'll survive.

Then I saw kids in the courtyard. They were getting their class picture taken. No. No, the courtyard pictures were next week, not this week. Oops. Well, maybe Mister Man really was wearing a white shirt, and I was just being paranoid. Nope, I then remembered being happy that he was wearing a red shirt that morning as he ate strawberries so there would be no stain. Yeah. Oops.

This morning when we arrived at Little Miss's, I asked where her backpack was.
But Mommy, why didn't you put it in the car?
Ahhhhh because I never put it in the car, and that's your job to get your backpack in the morning? I sighed.
But Mommy, I don't have it!
How do you not have it, Sweetie? I saw you wearing it on your back as you were heading towards the door. How could you forget it again?
I don't know, Mommy, she answered miserably.

Once I finished serving the pancake breakfast and cleaning up after it, I headed home. As I pulled into the driveway, I saw this.

Because. You know. It's just been one of those weeks around here.

Wacoal br@ or shapewear giveaway here

The Best Laid Plans...

If you're up with Disney Princesses, I'm also giving away a family four pack of tickets to Disney on Ice in Chicago for the Wednesday September 8 performance here.

I'm giving away our new favorite book - Is Your Buffalo Ready for Kindergarten here.

I have a new giveaway up for a Monopoly board game here.

***

Today was to have been Little Miss's first day of kindergarten. I have been really looking forward to this day because I love seeing how she's growing up. She walked into Mister Man's classroom last winter and announced that she was going to have his teacher for kindergarten this year. She was so proud and so confident, and I loved it.

We shopped for her uniform - somewhat unsuccessfully, but we had enough to get by for awhile. She loved going school supply shopping and packing her bag to take to meet the teacher on Monday in preperation for her day today. I even booked a massage for tomorrow afternoon, once she and Mister Man were both in school for a full day.

I was excited to have - for the first time ever - both wee ones in the same school at the same time. No more rushing from place to place and having slightly different schedules. No more trying to figure out which PTO I was going to do what for and feeling like I never really had a complete home at either school. And no panicking that I'd miss pickup or the bus for one child or the other because of a commitment to the first child.

In the middle of Mister Man's meet the teacher on Monday afternoon, I received a call from a number I somewhat recognized but couldn't quite put my finger on. Since the meet the teacher for him was essentially just unloading our supplies with no welcome from the teacher or orientation or anything, I answered it.

Hello, is this Michelle? questioned a voice I didn't recognize.

Ummmm, yes.

Great this is (name of the person). Little Miss has been accepted into the dual language program, as we just had a family drop out. Are you still interested in it?

Oh.

OH!

I dropped my bag and panicked. Wellll yes, we're still interested. It's a great program with the opportunity for her to be completely bilingual. And I would no longer have to pay private school tuition. And the schools are close enough that I could drop Little Miss off. And the daily schedules are different enough that no one would be late.

But there goes my easy little one school situation. And the friends that I have already made from the parents of kids that fill Little Miss's class. And the separation of the wee ones.

Figuring out school has never been easy with us.

But how do you turn down the opportunity for Little Miss? We'd tried to get Mister Man into the program last year and failed. We'd been told this spring that we hadn't won our way into it again. Until Monday.

She, of course, had been set on attending school with Mister Man, and he was so eager to be the big brother and show her the ropes. He was with me when I went to the office to tell them we were likely withdrawing Little Miss before school even started. And he was really sad. I hadn't realized how excited he was to be in school with her - and it was truly her that he was sad for.

I picked her up from my friend's house (I love my babysitting co-op, have I ever mentioned that?) and broke the news to her - with as positive a spin as I could. And thankfully, she was excited.

So I've spent the last few days registering her for the program and transferring her medical forms. We had another meet the teacher event today, and I practiced driving from one school to another. I found a friend from Little Miss's two year old preschool who was in the program and set up a playdate for today so she'd have a friend going into school.

And I canceled my massage for tomorrow.

Little Miss doesn't start until Monday. And she gets out of school an hour before Mister Man.

But that's ok. This is a great program, and Little Miss is looking forward to it. We've since found out that her second best friend from the last two years of preschool will be in her class. And I think a little separation will be good for them. Mister Man will be able to focus on his class and his friends instead of looking out for Little Miss and hanging with her all the time - and his social needs that. And Little Miss won't have to worry about following Mister Man and always being in his shadow - the younger sister of the brilliant older brother.

And me? I'm replanning my days. And getting involved in a second PTO. And figuring out what school supplies and uniforms I haven't taken tags off so that I can start to return them next week. And I refuse to panic about not knowing anything about a potential bus schedule until Friday at the earliest with school starting Monday.

It does get easier, right?