****I apoligize for not being around more this week, one of my coworkers has returned to grad school and I got his entire workload. In addition to mine. As in a promotion without a title, cause I'm a loser like that.....
I would love to post pictures of the girls' school open house for you, but sadly I forgot my camera. Which is just as well.....it was pandaleria (think Jeff Foxworthy).
We live in a children heavy area. Seriously we are the only people on our block that have two. The average family has five. Heck, one bunch have eight. Which kinda makes me want to cry whenever I see the mother of eight walking through the block. Cause my birth canal is having sympathy pains for hers. TMI, huh?
We pulled up and The Man immediately offered everyone ice cream if we could just leave, asap. But sadly behind that sea of cars, were my kids new teachers, I wasn't having it. So luck would have it and a minivan of moving truck proportions pulled out leaving a huge space in the bus lane directly in front of the school. Heaven shined on us, it was a beautiful moment. So once safetly parked in the smack middle of that spot, we departed the car and prepared to enter the fray.
The Man's football years came rushing back as he took in the massive crowds of people. He huddled us up and we made a game plan. We'd split and conquer, each taking a child and then reuniting on the playground and switch parents. Okay, we can do this.
Duchess was my first partner. As she was stuck clinging to my leg, this seemed the easiest method of surviving this without a meltdown. OMG. We found her room and I was pleasantly surprised to see that although her teacher was still wearing braces, she seemed to be very confident. She's been teaching four years. Greeeeeeaaaaat. When it was our turn at the meet & greet table she intro-ed herself and looked at Duchess.
"What's your name?"
Duchess stared. At her then at me.
I'm good at reading Duchess stares, so I tell her Duchess' name.
Then I get a dirty Duchess look cause Duchess prefers her nickname, the very short version of her real name.
Cause I'm an old fashioned sort of girl and gave my girls long beautiful, elegant names. Or so I though.
Duchess thinks I'm an idiot.
So I told her the nickname and that she prefers it.
Duchess nodded.
So we went through some more nodding, got our treasure hunt list (treasure hunt?) and went off to find, the door to the private playground (score!), the inclass bathroom (score!), the locker with Duchess' class number on it (she's #3) and the coat/bag rack. Then we climbed in her indoor reading treehouse and after I unlodged my high heel from a bean bag (hey no judging, I left work early to be there for my girlies) we ventured outside to test the playground.
Where through the fencing, I see The Man being drug all over the big playground by Princess. He immediately hails me and screams, Switch!
Seems Princess has found some friends she knew.
And went from his little camo wearing, bow and gun shooting tom girl into a squealing little mass of female. He panicked. The quitter. So we all met up and switched.
Then I got the puddle of squealing female hormones and we went to see the 4th grade.
My kids are once again, new at a school.
Even though we bought a house a mile from the old place, we were assigned a different school. And since this happened in mid summer, Princess was one of the last 4th graders apparently to sign up. Kid got stashed in one of the only portable buildings on the premises.
Reminds me of seventh grade when my junior high burned down.......sigh.
Her teacher seems well.......odd. She's an older woman, who apparently was just hired this week and is from Cali. Normally I would think this rocks, but she was a mess. Seriously her clothing and her hair just looked slept in. Hey, I'm not one to judge but another parent was going to town talking about it 5 feet away and I happened to notice.
Frazzled. That is a good word for how she seemed.
I hope this is temporary. We'll see......
Until then, my puddle of 4th grade girlieness is just excited to be back in school.
And Duchess, well Duchess announced that she was glad kindergarten was over.
Oh boy....
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Open House
