The plan for Sam's first day

The principal called today and had a nice long chat with Marc about my exceptionally anti-social five year old.  I'm mostly relieved that the school is being so pro-active about making the transition to school as trauma-free as possible, but a tiny part of me is wondering if he's the only kid getting this special treatment...

The plan, as it stands now, is for us to accompany him to school for the first day (which we'd do anyway, of course).  They'll immediately buddy him up with his best friend Jordyn, and ask that Marc and/or I stay at the school, not in the classroom, but in the office or lobby area to rescue him if it's really awful for him.  The principal plans on dismissing him for the day no later than 11:00 (as opposed to 2:20 with the rest of his class).  I'm still dreading it, hard core.

He's my buddy.  It wasn't any easier sending Jessica off for her first day.  And I don't know if it's worse with Sam or if it's just that Sam is what I'm dealing with NOW so it feels worse.  Jessie wasn't traumatized without me.  She wasn't horrified at being left alone in school.  Sam's flat out devastated that he's not going to be with me all day.  Insisting on that - sending him off to school, even though I know it's the right thing to do, even though I intellectually know that he's ready for it, intelligence-wise, socially, insisting that he be without me runs so far against the way that I'm raising him.  It just feels flat out wrong.

I can tell myself that it's good for him.  That giving him a gentle nudge out of the nest is what's needed right now.  That he'll thrive in school.  And I'll be chanting the little pep talk to myself on Tuesday, when they peel his sobbing little body off of my legs and drag him, kicking and screaming, into the classroom.

Ugh - I so don't want to do this.  The worst part is that I called the school department when I was battling with the idea of sending Jessica off to school, and I KNOW that kindergarten isn't mandatory in Massachusetts.  I can skip it entirely and enroll him in first grade without having to do anything with the school system for homeschooling.

BUT - he needs to learn that the world is safe even when I'm not right there.  He needs to learn to trust other adults.  He's good with other kids - having the other day care kids here from the beginning certainly helped with that.  He's always been great with other kids his age, and with four sisters, he's certainly socialized fine.  But he's always been with me.  It's leaving me.  That's what's going to be so hard.

I'm faking it well - I keep beaming about him going to school, raving about how much fun it'll be, how much he'll love it.  But I know that my heart is going to break a little bit on Tuesday, and I'm going to miss my buddy like you wouldn't believe.

Jessie's first day

Here's hoping that third grade kicks second grade's butt!  Last year wasn't a lot of fun for my girl, and I'm very encouraged that she came home yesterday saying that she LOVED her new teacher.

I hate back to school

There.  I've said it.  I really hate this time of year.  I like having my kids around all the time, and while I'm fully convinced that it's the best for them to attend school, in my heart of hearts, sending them off to be with other people all day seems as wrong now as it did when they were infants.  They're mine.  I want them with me.
Maybe it'd help if either one of them was in the least bit enthusiastic about it - but they aren't.  Jessie has been a wreck, rocketing back and forth between excitement over getting "organized" (she must get that from Marc, her odd delight in putting things in order) and sobbing because she's dead certain that she's got the meanest teacher in the world and she doesn't like a single soul that's in her class.  Sam is resigned to going, I think.  But he's been a little extra clingy, and all I can think is that this time next week, he's going to be a little pool of Sammy Misery, all tears and heartbreak because I have to send him away ALL DAY LONG.

I hate shopping for school supplies, I hate glue sticks and pencil sharpeners and trying to figure out what's going to "cool" for Jessica this year.  I hate the agonies over wearing sneaker for gym (Jessie hates sneakers and only ever wears them when she's got gym class, and always sobs over it), trying to pick out clothes every morning (and I know we should pick them out the night before, but anyone who says that'll work doesn't have an indecisive, moody eight year old, who will blithely agree with the outfit the night before and then decide she hates it and can't possibly wear it the next morning).  I hate packing lunch, I hate fighting over homework.  I hate making them go in the morning.

All of this is just based on sending Jessica Mary to school.  I can't begin to tell you how much I'm dreading sending Samilicious Boy out the door.  The hardest part for me is constantly pretending that going to school is the best thing since sliced bread, and they'll LOVE it - third grade is the BEST and kindergarten?  Holy moly, kindergarten is more fun that anything!  When the truth is that I don't want to send them at all.  Intellectually, I know that it's the right thing to send them to school.  Temperment wise - Jessica and I would not do well homeschooling, we're too much alike, and I think if I didn't kill her, she'd kill me.  If there was any doubt in my mind, kicking her butt to get the book reports done this summer convinced me.  And Sam needs a little nudge to go out into the world.  He's very shy and antisocial, and I'm hoping that kindergarten encourages him to be a little more social.  Or at least, not so out and out terrified of strangers.  It's not terrified, he's not afraid of people, he just honestly doesn't like people in general.  In specific, he's fine, he loves us, he's got friends, neighbors, relatives, etc.  But in general, he doesn't like people.

Ahh - general grumpiness all over the place today.  Jess has been sarcastic and disrespectful a lot lately, and I explained to her today that I wasn't going to spend the next ten years being treated like crap, and from now on, every single time she was wretched to me, she'd be sent to her room and I'd make her write "I will not speak to my mother disrespectfully again." over and over and over.  It's either that, or I'm just going to start beating her with a stick.  I know she's stressed about tomorrow.   But with her stress and Julianna's teething misery, it's not a good day to be bitchy to me.  That's all I'm saying.

Bags, D&D, and can you have PMS when you're eight?

Julianna loves bags.  Lunch bags, backpacks, little girl pocketbooks, you name it, she'll crawl (yes, she's still not walking) around the house with it.  We did the back to school shopping and she's delighted by Jessie's new multicolored lunchbox and thrilled to death with Sam's Super Mario Brothers lunchbox.  She's fascinated with Marc's big backpack full of D&D books and one of her favorite activities has always been going thru my pocketbook.

I think I'm finally getting better.  Day 2 with no Sudafed.

Sam is playing little kid Dungeons and Dragons in the dining room with Marc and the two teenagers from across the street.  I'm 99% sure he has no idea what he's doing, but he's holy moly into it.  As is Marc.  I got a whole geek fest going on in there.  I made them cupcakes.

Jessica Mary - my precious little angel love bug, she's been in the throes of something unpleasant as of late.  Call it hormones, call it crappy attitude, call it end of summer misery and back to school anxiety.  I've called it just about everything, and have yet to come up with a solution yet.  She's weepy and miserable and mean and nasty - interspersed with these glimmers of angelic behavior.  I'm struggling with how to best deal with her behavior - and reminding myself that it doesn't actually get any easier as your kids grow up, it just gets more complicated.

Do any of us REALLY know what we're doing????

Mothering is not for the faint of heart.  I'd say parenting, but right now, I'm going to do a little gross generalization, and assume that what's true for Marc and I is true for all parents.  Because I seem to worry about everything a LOT more than my husband does.  It's not that I love the kids more, because I don't.  I know that they are the very center of Marc's world, and that he cares about them as much as I do.  But I worry and agonize over them a lot more than he does.

I worry all the time about their character, their morality.  I want them to be brave and bold and kind.  Giving, gentle and sweet.  Confident, capable, responsible.  But mostly, I want them to be kind.  I like kindness.  It's sort of my thing.  Some parents want financial success, ambitious kids, some kids want them to follow in their religious shoes, or to vote the same way they do.  I don't care about that.  I want them to be kind.  I want nice kids.  They can be dirt poor, or staggeringly wealthy - I hope that money isn't what they use to define their worth.  They can celebrate Rosh Hashana or Christmas or Beltane, I don't care - I'd like them to feel a connection to the Divine, however it manifests itself is fine.  I don't care if they vote for a Democrat or a Republican, I'd like them to vote and to care one way or another, but which one?  I'm good with whatever.  But mostly, I'd just like for them to be kind.  To be good people, who think about others, and want to make the world a better place.

And when they're not - when I'm forced to confront the fact that they, sometimes, just ARE NOT KIND, but are in fact, kind of mean spirited and selfish and nasty to one another, I can't help but feel like I've failed as a mother.  And I'm baffled by it, how do you teach kindness?  I can teach them to not hit each other, I can teach them to stop throwing temper tantrums and to eat their vegetables and make their beds. I can teach them to use their manners and brush their teeth and speak respectfully to adults.  But kindness?  How does one teach that?   Modelling good behavior isn't working as well as I'd hope - I'm kind.  I'm a nice person.  Marc is, hands down, the nicest person I've ever met.  He's way nicer than I am, and I'm wicked nice.  And sometimes, my kids are just nasty to one another.

Ugh.  Just a bad day overall today.  Julianna is teething, and screamed for a good half hour this morning. Then screamed for another twenty minutes while I brushed Jessie's hair.  And Jessie - man, I adore that child, Jessie was not in the best frame of mind today and was just randomly cruel to her little brother.  Who was innocent and confused, and it just spiraled out from there.  I'm still sick enough to feel like I'd be better off in bed, and everyone's getting anxious and stressed about going back to school.

Definitely not a morning I'd like to repeat.

Still sick, but getting better...

This isn't a bad cold, exactly.  But it's a long lasting one, I feel as though we've been collectively sick forever.  Today, I charged out into the world, taking all three kids down to the mall.  Jessie loves the mall above all else, and so for her, it was a dream come true.  We bought lunch, Chinese chicken and nuggets and french fries, then wandered around aimlessly for a while.  I gave them each a dollar and let them go wild in the Dollar store, and then drove to a playground and let them run around for about an hour.  They had baby swings there, and Julianna loves swinging.  She's such a good girl - when she wasn't swinging, she played happily on the top of the picnic table, going thru my purse.  I had my niece with me, Isabella, and she and my older two bopped around the playground for a long time.  After that, I packed them up and headed to my mother's house.

Sam's hair had gotten out of control long, he looked like Wolfman.  So my sister cut his hair, and it was traumatic for everyone.  He had a knock down dragged out screaming temper tantrum, and then ran in circles, filled with rage, around my mother's back porch after it was done.  My poor mother and sister had never seen a full blown fit before and I think they were both a little horrified.  Sam's a mild mannered kid, really, but when he wants to, he can throw down a fit that's unimaginable.  And since I've got eight years of experience dealing with Jessie's fits, I just stay calm and ignore it as best I can.  Nothing really helps to stop a fit, I've tried just about everything, so now I just let him scream it out.  And on the upside, his hair looks a lot better now :-).

Jessica is outside right now, playing with the neighbor, and Sam's bopping around playing with his army guys.  Poor Julianna is sleeping - a full day doesn't lead to good napping for her.  So she's out cold, and I'm sad about that, as she'll be up all night now :-(

Sick, sick, sick and more sick

This is the never ending cold, and we're still kind of sick here.  It's been over a week and at least one of us (Marc and I) have been monstrously sick every day.  Coughing, hacking, eyes swelling up, noses running, crabbiness abounds.  I apologize for the lack of blogging, I'm just sick as a dog these days, and it's all I can do just to sort of lay there.

In other news... school starts in a week and a half.  We're half heartedly getting ready - and given that it's 10:08 and my five year old is still asleep, it's going to be a major adjustment for us.

I'd blog more, but honestly, I just want to go lay back down.