Back to School

September is my January.  In fact, September is more January-y than January.  September is a change of season and the beginning of school, which is a much stancher beginning than the so-called new beginning in January.  Because in January nothing changes expect a single digit I write on the end of the date on the 2 checks I write a month.  But September, SEPTEMBER!  It's the end of the hot hot and beginning of the cool.  It's the end of sleeping in and return to a schedule.  It really is a fresh start. Besides, I'm a super nerd so, yes, the beginning of the school year marks a more significant beginning for me.

This year, because I love holidays and especially made up ones and because I saw a cute banner at Target that I decided I could replicate for the exact same price but with more effort (actually my mom and Aunt Carrie ended up making it), I decided to throw a party.  So the night before school started, we had a Back to School feast, where I introduced our family's theme for the year--I saw a friend do it and thought it was a good idea.  Greg also did Father's Blessings. Our theme is from the Doctrine and Covenants 115: 5--Arise and Shine Forth that they light might be a standard to all nations.  Because I can not teach my children every little thing they should do, nor can I anticipate all the ways the other little kids at school will tempt my angels.  But I can teach my kids how to recognize and act on the Spirit and that is the best I can do and will have to be good enough.  So we'll focus on them feeling the light of the Spirit and sharing it with others. 

 The next day, Rex headed off for second grade--actually I took him to school since he had 3 bags of school supplies that he couldn't carry himself and we'd skipped back to school night so Rex didn't know where his classroom was and was a little nervous about finding his room on his own.  Our neighbor is in his class this year and Rex has yet to have a single bad thing to say about school in the whole 5 days he's gone--which is much better than last year.  Rex got the good teacher this year.  We're looking forward to a much better year this year.  Homework starts this week, so we'll see how things go once that gets started.

 Friday Alice headed off for her first day of dance.  She's taking the same class this year as she did last year and even has 2 of the same kids in her class with the same teacher.  It's the only day time class in the city, so she's there again.

And that's that.  We're back to the crazy school schedule, which I have a love-hate relationship with. I hate homework and waking up early, but I love having a schedule and feeling normal, especially since adding Zora to the family.  I have felt just out of sorts, like I just couldn't get things done; like I didn't want to get things done; like I wanted to do everything.  It's nice to be back on a schedule.  But while I was driving Alice the 20 minutes to her dance class last week, I was lamenting that I'd become the taxi-driving mom of over-scheduled children and questioned my decision to allow Alice to do 3 extra curricular activities, but they aren't really extra curricular are they because she's not in school now are they? Being a mother is the worst.  I wish it were more like math, where 2 plus 2 always equals 4.