School time!

Whoo-hoo!!!

It's the most

wonderful time of the year....

Forget Christmas, I mean back to school!

When three children rise in the wee hours to scurry around with scowls on their faces, trying to remember how to eat breakfast in less than a half hour, or how to cram in as much computer time as possible without being late for the bus.... and then the house is left with those blissful sounds of silence and adults sighing with relief. Well, at least the one of us who's UP. ;-)

I'm not complaining though. My accustomed role as Stella's early morning companion changes somewhat now that school's back in, and I'm available to supervise the morning rush. It's pretty ok for all involved though - Stella loves having the kids around and the activity in the kitchen, and everyone stops to pet her as they fly by. I'm here to sign forms, answer questions, and be a general helper, like when someone sleeps through their alarm on the 2nd day of high school and is in a total flustered panic-rush. And when they leave, it's suddenly very, very quiet...the contrast is almost shocking.

It's only day three, but so far, so good. Conner is very pleased with the teachers and classes that he got for his sophomore year. The high school here has a funky schedule-picking concept called "Arena" wherein those above freshmen get to build their schedules themselves, picking their teachers even, and are about 90% guaranteed of getting what they pick out, barring some sort of administrative changes, of course. He got everything he planned out last spring, and four of his teachers are the same ones he had and liked a lot last year, so that works out well. One of those, his multimedia teacher, is the one who first accepted him into the class as a freshman (first time that ever happened - usually the class isn't open to freshmen at ALL!) and then groomed him to be sort of a TA *and* got him the gig over the summer videotaping another teachers wedding for real money. This is a good teacher to have on your side! I told him that if he gets good at the camera work as well as the editing, that could be a great little side job during the summer, hiring himself out as an affordable wedding videographer.

Trevor is cautiously happy with high school so far - so far as I can tell. He didn't get into media as a freshman (which I think secretly makes him INSANE, because for once he didn't get what he wanted and get to be an exception to the rule) and so he's actually starting Spanish before Conner does, which should prove interesting. The counselor actually told us (when we were doing Conner's scheduling) that the odds of a freshman getting into Spanish were slim, because all the juniors and seniors were clambering to get in after they'd served their two-year sentence in PE, which is why Conner didn't even try. He'll only get two years, but that's all the colleges require anyway. But, this is Trevor's first foreign language experience, and I'm genuinely curious to see how he does with it. He's brilliant in English, both technically and creatively, but I have no earthly idea if Spanish will come to him with the same facility. But overall, so far, so good.

Anna is perfectly thrilled with being a seventh grader. If you ask me, I think what thrills her the most is that she's the only Irwin in the school, with no big brothers with big shadows to hang over her. I don't blame her - she's the baby of the family, and has always had to follow behind the boys, and they leave some mighty big figurative footsteps. She was in tears at Trevor's graduation because he got so many medals, plaques and awards and she herself had only ever earned certificates. I never knew it was such a huge thing to her until then, but man, is it.

Now that I know how much it matters to her, I'm trying to help her earn some of those shiny things she wants so badly. I've told her to try and find out what all the awards are and what you have to do to earn them - things like CJSF (California Jr. Scholarship Federation, an honor society) and the Principal's Award, etc; they have about 20 different ones at this school - and then she can set some goals for her year. *I* personally don't get it....seriously. I can't wrap my mind around the idea of being desperate to earn a little gold disk on the end of a ribbon so badly that it makes me cry, but she is, and it does make her cry, so ok, by golly, I'll help her earn her little gold disks!!

But mainly, I think she's excited by the fact that she gets these two junior high years all to herself, and that is pretty cool. She'd never attended a school without at least one brother until we moved up here, when she was in 5th grade. Since Gridley has a middle school system (6-7-8) instead of junior high like Fremont did, as soon as we moved she got to be at the top of the food chain as a 5th grader, with no brothers above her, and man did she shine. Bright, sparkly shine!!

I have a very strong suspicion that these next two years will be much the same, so I'm really encouraging her to go for it. Join things, run for things, earn things, go, go, go! I think it will give her some much-needed confidence and ego boosting. She does pretty good in those areas these days anyway, don't get me wrong - she's a far cry from that little girl I met who thought she was ugly and dumb and I am SO happy about that - but a nearly-teenage girl can NEVER have too much confidence and ego boosting. Trust me.

ANYway, she's in 7th grade, and got into the multimedia class at her school, which is pretty rare for a 7th grader. That's one time where her big brothers came in handy - they were both stars in the media class as 8th graders, so at Trevor's graduation last year, the media teacher asked Anna if she wanted in and promised her a spot. Sweet!

As for me, I'm a tad tired, but otherwise not too horrible. I crammed in way too much end of summer fun last week (state fair, county fair, circus) and I'm trying to recover from it. I ended up lymphedema'd to a really ugly point, but it went away, thank god, and am generally really tired, achy and painful. Andy gave me cortisone injections in both hips last week, but then I went and walked on 'em, and now the right hip hurts almost as much as it did before the injection. Crap. And, I'm quite prolapsed, which is causing me more than a little problem in the bathroom and driving me insane. Really, if I had the option, I'd go into surgery tomorrow to have everything put back in place, because I'm going bonkers. Really bonkers.

But overall, I'm not going to complain too much. I certainly could, but I'm not going to. We have the daytimes to ourselves again, which means I can take the time I need to rest, dream up some new slow-cooker dinners, work on some small crafty things when my hands allow, and begin my new big hobby - obsessing over what to wear to my 20 year reunion.

That, folks, will keep me busy for a loooooooooong time...