Thursday, August 28, 2008

The Wheels On The Bus Do Go Round and Round!

Yesterday brought us the first day of school. It was exciting and scary for all of us. The kidlets are off to new adventures and I am off to getting a bit of normalcy in my life. The boys are in the same school and catch the bus with the boys next door.
I had to zoom in because they were quite appalled at the thought of their grandmother taking a picture of them at 4th and 8th grade level.
Little Red is off on her own, but being the kid she is will have no problem. The end of the drive is as far as she goes...
J-Man has a teacher Big Z and his uncles had, whilst all the other teachers have moved on. Little Red is in a school where the office staff has not changed since the Man Child was there. I remember when they first started their jobs, so it was refreshing to see them the first day I returned after all these years.
Twenty years ago, I sat on the planning committee to bring a phone tree and a safety program for bus drop-offs for the younger students (we wanted to go to 6th grade but had to settle for the elementary school, to 3rd). It is quite amazing to see a plan that I've helped implement working so smoothly all these years later.
Red was pleased with her day as the boys were not so. J-Man met no one and Z2 knew only a few. The plan for tomorrow? Introduce yourself to 5 classmates.

One of the things we have been working on, is tying our shoes. It use to be a given, my children knew how to tie their shoes by time they were in kindergarten, which made them 4 or 5. The days of Velcro have made it easy for parents and the art of shoe tying has fallen by the wayside.
Yes, life has changed since the Male Child, now 23, stepped on that bus...elementary school still provides the basics but middle school only provides a pencil box for 4th and an assignment book for the 8th grade.
I still celebrate by scrubbing the house from top to bottom(being revolting from summertime), well the main rooms, anyway. A few Art-Is-You tasks that needed to be tended to, as well. The studio move was put on hold for one more day...I forgot how long it takes to accomplish things now that there are children in the house once again. By the weekend's end, we shall have it done and turned into a bedroom. The new space? It is a work in progress and will get done...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love the photo of our little Red. She stands so tall but yet still such a little girl.

Anonymous said...

I hear there is still a spot on the 2008 Planning Committee?...

Jennifer Paganelli said...

I never thought I'd ever be able to tie my shoe Ellen!!!
love your blog and these wonderful pics of family!!