Photos courtesy of The Swain School’s online photo gallery (these must have been taken by Meera’s teacher at recess)
Two 3rd Graders & a Kindergartener!
A new year! A new school!
Uniforms!!! Who woulda thunk it?!?!!!! (So far, I gotta admit: I love ’em!)
Kyle, Owen, and Meera started school today at The Swain School. This school is more in our neck of the woods — since we made the home-move a year ago, it was time to make the school-move too. But the bigger reason we chose to make the move to Swain is that over the past couple of years we had become convinced that Kyle and Owen (especially), and Meera too, would greatly benefit from a more rich and dynamic school environment. Swain is a better fit for our family right now. It is more diverse, more academically progressive, and more able to support — in every way — our three young whippersnappers as they rise up in this world! This trio needs a lot to keep them busy! Swain has a lot to offer. We are so happy with this move (it has been a long time coming!), and we are so excited for an awesome school year!
In all of our years of living here — so close to the Delaware River — we’ve never spent time on the river. Which is just bizarre, considering how water-loving our family is. So, when mid-way through the summer Shelli & Lori invited us to go tubing on the Delaware over Labor Day Weekend, we jumped on it. Sunday was the big day. It was an absolute blast!
We had quite the crew on the river! Lori, Shelli, and Zoe, us, and Henry, Bryan, and Sean. Let me repeat: It was an absolute blast!!!
An awesome day to officially put the bookend on summer!
We’ve been home for two weeks. It has been a strange sort of “limbo” time — with work really gearing up for me (classes started at Lehigh last week), and work going at full tilt for Braydon, but school still not begun for Kyle, Owen, and Meera. We pieced the two weeks together, Braydon and I took turns covering the home-front, and we had some help from student babysitters at Lehigh, but what really made these past two weeks a wonderful ending to our summer (as opposed to would could have easily been an absolutely terribly disastrous and miserable ending to the summer) was Ryan.
Ryan has been a huge person in our family life for the past two years. She was the bambinos’ full-time babysitter for Summer 2011 (click here), and she’s been helping us raise our kids ever since. Somehow she always seems to breeze right in, take control, and make everything seem manageable at precisely the times when our life is most out of control (mainly, summers and school vacation weeks). Ryan is more than a “babysitter” for us– she’s like an extension of our family; more like a trusted auntie than a childcare provider. We could not be more grateful.
These past two weeks Ryan took over a few large chunks of days for us, coming up with fabulous stuff to do with the kids. It was just enough to make the whole two-week-period feel like a breezy end to summer (when it could have easily been, as I said, a nightmare). We J-Ms fondly referred to these past two weeks as “The Camp of Ryan.” Ryan took them hiking, she took them to parks, she took them to the zoo. She took them bowling. She baked cupcakes with them. She even did some school-prep (math) with the boys to get them ready for 3rd grade. It was like a wonderful bookend to the best summer ever. Thanks to Ryan.
Tonight was the kick-off concert for Lehigh’s four a cappella groups. There’s just nothing like college a cappella!
These are the sorts of things that we try not to miss on campus. Last year Meera was too young to stay up so late. This year, all five of us made it. Such a great way to spend a Saturday night!
our first student event of the 2013-2014 academic year
Late this afternoon we had 50+ Eckardt Scholars over for a Welcome/Welcome-Back Mocktail Party. It was a great event to kick-off the year. Thank goodness for:
- Jeanne, my Right-Hand-Woman (our Eckart Scholars Program administrative coordinator, from the Office of Interdisciplinary Programs) who makes all of my visions reality.
- LU Catering, who make these events possible for me to pull off — and who make it delish for some very appreciative students! (I like to spoil the Eckardt Scholars with all sorts of treats… today’s menu included: sushi, crab cakes, bruschetta, spring rolls, fresh fruit, yummy alcohol-free sangria… and many other fabulous items too!)
- The students. They are, truly, just so incredibly incredible. I just love them.
By living on campus I can easily do these sorts of events at our home. The students feel like they are being invited to a professor’s house (which they are), and that makes it much more personal and special than if I were to hold it in an event space. They can also get to/from the event very easily (we are right on campus, so no car necessary). I can pull it off without having to worry too much about the bambinos (Kyle, Owen, and Meera all join right in… and honestly, add a lot of life to any party!). And our dear friends from LU Catering just swoop in to set it up, and then clean it up. After a quick run of the vacuum and a wipe-off of all the surfaces, everything is right back in shape (so our entire day/night is not consumed with hosting an event).
The bambinos are happy (they are eating pizza and watching a movie right now), the students are happy (the Eckardt students and the Sayre students [who, by the way, always benefit by getting all the leftovers from our events!]), and Braydon and me are happy (we’re high-fiving each other feeling like we’ve somehow managed to pull off yet another day of the dual-career-&-3-kids marriage). It is all good as we wrap up the First Week of Classes and head into the new year.
For several weeks now Meera has been talking to me about wanting to get a haircut. She told me, repeatedly, that she wanted it short. It was hard for me to believe it (her long hair has always been such a huge part of her identity). But she was pretty insistent. And she was also clear that she wanted to do it before the first day of kindergarten. With a lump in my throat and a pit in my stomach I brought her to the hair salon today. She explained to her hair stylist exactly what she wanted. I just stood back (as hard as it was to do) and let it all happen. My only request was that Meera’s hair be given to Locks of Love. Meera is so happy with her haircut. She’s also so happy for whoever the little girl is out there who will someday be wearing a wig of hair that matches Meera’s (“We’ll be just like twins!” she said, many times, as I watched her long ponytail get cut right off). Oh my aching heart!
I don’t know how people do it. I mean, really. These lists of required school supplies? I know that some schools are worse than others with these. I don’t know how long or short other people’s kids’ lists are… but ours seem real long to me. Especially when there are THREE lists (I cannot imagine what this is like in large families with many children).
We conquered the lists today. The bambinos and me. At Staples. ALL MORNING LONG. (Not really, it was actually only 1 hour + 15 minutes, but it seemed like it was allllll morrrrrrning looooooong.) I had laid in bed last night, unable to sleep, trying to plan my strategy for this monumental task. I think we did a pretty good job of it (I walked in, the three of them trailing behind, on a mission, and projecting all the confidence in the world [all the while shaking in my boots], the lists on clipboards, a pen for each one of them, three baskets in the cart, and we went aisle by aisle until we had everything checked off that we could). Still, it was enough to make an end-of-summer-mother-almost-lose-her-marbles.
Really. I should have just done it myself. But I had no babysitter today (and I need to use my babysitting time VERY carefully this week — as things are up and running with First Week of Classes at Lehigh, but school is not yet started for the bambinos). And I figured we’d just make it happen.
It did happen. But I left Staples feeling like I should get an award, or at least a gift card or something, just for having pulled it off without completely losing my mind.
There was no award. Instead, we went out for pizza for lunch. The kids thought that was awesome.
We’ve got the school supplies. The whole lot of them. Somehow, miraculously, we pulled it off.
We’ve got the new sneakers too, and the back-to-school clothes (for the most part), and we’re working on the rest of the million details that go into the Back to School Project.
Our first day of school is nearing. These last few days of “summer” don’t really feel like summer at all. We teeter between “can’t wait for school to start” and “wish it would never come.”
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