And My Heart Keeps Limping Along

Is it Friday yet?  I heard a rumor that it was Friday and I'd like to believe it, but given the emotionally draining roller coaster of a week I just had, it just sounds too good to be true.  Is it really Friday?  Really?  It is?  Are you sure?

Oh, then all I can say is... THANK THE LORD IN HEAVEN ABOVE US!

I mean every word of it too.  With every ounce, every cell, every little bit of my being, I am thanking God that it is over.  The first week of school this year kicked my kettle chip butt.  Then it handed it back to me on a platter.  Then it made me kneel before it and listen while it berated me for the blithe and naive manner in which entered this school year.

Seriously guys.  This week was hard.

Besides what I already wrote about J getting sick at school on the second day, I started my Baby Roo in preschool, which I thought I was mentally ready for.  Then I got her there and was getting ready to say goodbye when all of a sudden I got that panicky feeling of "Wait! How did we get here???  She's not big enough yet!"  Do you guys ever get that feeling?  It constricted my throat and I could feel the muscles in my face twitching, wanting to go into The Ugly Cry formation.  I fought through it with deep breaths, but it was a close call that wore on my heart for the rest of the day.

That was the first of my heart's casualty for the week.

So then, we had that little incident with J- which by the way, turned out fine.  He wasn't really sick with any kind of bug- which I'm not sure is better or worse than the truth- which is that I had woken him up from a nightmare that morning and it stayed with him.  That combined with nerves made him throw up.  I don't know where he gets that kind of weird behavior from (says the lady who once fell asleep while reading Stephen King, dreamed about it, woke up, threw up, and to this day, has never finished that particular book).

Anyway- that turned out to be the easier part of my week because on Tuesday I picked Roo up from school and she had a low fever and runny nose, which she has now passed on to me.  I am operating in fog mode, which I liken to that feeling you have in the first few weeks of bringing home a newborn.  Do you remember?  You're so tired that your eyes burn and you're not really sure how you're getting things done- you just know that somehow you're doing it?  And you keep pushing through it because there's no other choice?  That's how I feel.  It sucks.

On Wednesday night, Mr. C and the kids were wrestling and all of a sudden PG, who is usually pretty tough and never cries, burst into tears.  The tears escalated to wailing and the wailing escalated to screaming, which then turned into sobbing for the next straight hour.  So I rubbed her back, put the other kids to bed, and had a little one on one with her.  Turns out that second grade has been disappointing for her so far.  She feels left out because most of her friends from last year were put into the other class.   She misses her first grade teacher.  She has to sit next to this kid who says mean things to her and embarrasses her (By the way, when I asked her what he said she sobbed that he told her that she wasn't a good writer, which kind of makes me proud that she finds that as equally offensive as if he said something about her appearance.)  The final nails in the coffin were that her teacher gave the class 2 tests in the first 3 days of school, and that she has a different lunch time than her friends.

My first instinct was to go in and switch her class, or at least talk to her teacher about moving her away from the ding dong she has to sit next to.  However, I reminded myself of my main goal in this parenting venture- to raise my kids into independent and happy adults, and for them to not hate me when it's all over with- so instead I just talked to her about the choices she can make when the ding dong bothers her. Then I sympathized with her about missing her friends and last year's teacher.

So that was the second casualty on my heart (and btw, Ding Dong has a limited time to fix his behavior before I step in and have a chat with the teacher).

The final casualty was on Thursday when I dropped J off for Kindergarten.  The day before he went in with no problem, but this time I knew something was remiss when we got onto the playground and he didn't want to go play.  He stayed close to me and when the teacher rang the bell to line up, I saw the tears start welling up in his eyes.  He really was trying to be brave, which only made it harder to watch as he got in line and I could see the corners of his mouth pulling down.  Then (and I'm pretty sure the teachers teach them this on the first day strictly for the purpose of making parents cry), he gave me the ASL sign for "I love you" and held it up as he walked in the door with tears streaming down his face.

The really terrible thing was that I had left my sunglasses in the car and I had nothing to hide my fat puffy eyes behind while my heart shattered into a million pieces.

That was my week.  You can see why I am looking forward to putting the kids down for bed tonight and going out with Mr. C.  We're leaving them with the 15 year old high school Sophomore who lives with us and who, as far as I can tell, had a fairly decent first week of school.  At least that's what I am assuming, because even if it was bad, I don't believe he would tell us.  We have both ends of the spectrum here guys, and neither one is good.

And this is why I drink wine.

Happy Friday!