First Week of School

Well, we got through the first week. What a crazy time of year. I kind of wish that we were in the category of families who take these sorts of things more lightly (we have some friends who make a huge deal of it, and some friends who purposefully don’t). I actually think in some ways it makes more sense to not make a huge thing of it (take some pressure off the situation!). But suffice it to say that we J-Ms don’t. We take it the-opposite-of-lightly (as K & O would say). It is all a big huge deal. For better or for worse.

As the result of lots (and lots!) of effort, and probably even more luck, we sailed through the first week with relative ease. The boys love their first grade, adore their school, and are ridiculously excited because they’ll be playing soccer for their school team this year. Papi and I, on the other hand, while excited for our two uber-athletes, are feeling quite ambivalent… and I’ll admit: anxious… about the extremely rigorous soccer schedule; we are now full-speed-ahead into the world of organized sports—a world we held off from entering for as long as humanly possible, but a world in which we are now suddenly fully immersed. Meera, in an unexpected twist, is not so thrilled with her “new school.” For a bunch of complicated reasons, we moved her into a new daycare starting this fall (she took the summer off and began last week at a new place that we thought would be better). She’s struggling with the adjustment and we’re not 100% confident she’s going to be alright there. The next few days will be important ones in figuring out her situation.

In the meantime…  we’re back to the grind with the school year routine. Summer seems like a distant memory as I valiantly attempt to enthuse myself for another year school lunch making. Yes, I know, I could throw a ‘lunchables’ in there and call it a night, but I cannot bring myself to do it. I don’t judge others for doing it (in fact, in many respects, I have great admiration for other parents who can do these things with much less vigor), but I seem to be hard-wired to make the bambinos’ lunches with 100% effort each and every time. I can’t explain it; I am just compelled to do it. Meera’s loving the boys’ old Laptop Lunch systems (K & O outgrew these long ago when their appetites way surpassed the maximum volume capacity of these bento boxes). The boys now beg for “thermos lunch” (translation: a hot and heavy lunch). They want tortellini, ravioli, mac-n-cheese, soups, leftovers of any kind…  and the more thermoses on any given day, the better (i.e., ideal lunch = mac-n-cheese AND tomato soup… in other words, TWO THERMOSES EACH). They come home with empty lunchboxes each and every day. I swear, I know I sound like a broken record, but really: they are going to eat me out of house and home before they are even 12.

Back To School Week = Week Of Comfort Food here.

Day 1 was our Back-To-School Dinner

Day 2 was homemade mac-n-cheese, salad with French dressing (update to the linked-to post: we now affectionately call the salad dressing “Haitian Dressing” because it turns out that this is a very popular salad dressing in Haiti!)

Day 3 was teriyaki marinated steak, mashed potatoes, broccoli (I have an old teriyaki marinade recipe that is a new favorite of all three bambinos!)

Day 4 was take out pizza (Mommy teaches a grad seminar on Thursday nights!)

Day 5 was “Sunny Chick Pasta” & a mozzarella-tomato-basil salad (nothing says “September” to me more than the awesome farm stand tomatoes that are in abundance right now!)

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A little story about the first week that I don’t want to forget:

Before school started the boys received letters from their teacher. Among other things, the letter said that they were going to be learning a lot of “ology’s” in school this year– “geology, astronomy, meteorology…” etc. At the very top of the list was “sociology.” Well, Kyle could have just burst with excitement at this. “We’re going to do sociology Mom!!!!!! Sociology!!!!!!!!!!!” Before school even began he was making plans to ask his teacher if I could come in to be a Guest Speaker, strategizing for a field trip to my office, and deciding which of my books he was going to bring in to class for show-and-tell. Anyone who knows me can just imagine how insanely uncomfortable the prospects of this made me. (In a nutshell: am modest to a fault and self-promotion – or even the possible perception of it on the part of others – makes me extremely edgy.) I kept trying to blow it off (and have Kyle blow it off), re-direct his energies, and generally not encourage his grand plans. But by mid-way through his first week of school there was no holding him back any longer. He was determined to bring some of my books to class (as in, books of which I’m an author). He carefully selected three (the three which have covers most prominently displaying my name), and put them in his backpack (see photo at the top of this post) and off he went. I could have just died. After school that day I asked Kyle how it went with my books. He said, “GREAT!” and that was all he was willing to offer. At the end of the week the boys’ teacher approached me to thank me for letting Kyle bring in the books. I tried to explain how persistent he had been and that it was not my idea. She then told me the whole story of what went down in class. My anxiety quickly dispersed as I was just about rolling on the floor laughing at her re-telling of the story! Apparently Kyle was enthusiastically passing the books around and the kids (as in the whole class) insisted that they wanted to read my books. Their teacher eventually sat them down and read aloud one paragraph, which she then attempted to translate into 1st Grade Language. The kids, who had started out excited, were quickly lost in translation and completely overcome with confusion. Then one kid finally asked, “So, what is income?” And they then wound up in a deep conversation about income, wealth, and the difference between the two. I can just imagine the whole scene and I am practically laughing out loud (as I also cringe) even now as I type this out! 

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And that’s a wrap! One week down, too many to count left!