Annnd....they're off!

You'd think after 8 years of doing this gig (and even more, if you count preschool), it would have dawned on me before now.  I'm a little slow that way.

Here it is, the big revelation:  School makes me crazy.

All year long last year I fought with my kids almost every (week)day about running late, messing around in the mornings, not getting their stuff done, not doing their chores, homework, messy rooms (ok, this one is ongoing), and on and on and ON.  I thought it was them.  Lazy.  Undisciplined.  Careless.  Couldn't-care-less.  Bad attitudes.

And then I thought it was me.  Overbearing.  Impatient.  Too-high expectations.  Drill sergeant.  All-around bad parent.

After a couple of weeks of being out of school this summer, things started to mellow out a little.  We all started getting along better.  Tempers flared less and less often.  Less arguing (between them and me, not between themselves), less grouching, less frustration.  More harmony.  More laughter.  More relaxed.

Yesterday - on day ONE of school - I woke up and prayed, "God, I don't want to go back to the way things were last year.  Please give me the patience of Your Spirit.  Please fill me with Your love, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness....  I want our home to be full of Your PEACE...."

And on day ONE of school, both kids were STARTING their lunches 5 minutes before time to go (yes, they make their own.  Bad mom.).  Kloe was asking me - as she should have been walking out the door - "Do I take these supplies that were in my backpack from last year?  Or only the ones in the sack?"  Didn't we already go through all this?

Jacob picked up his sack of supplies and the handle tore off, nearly dumping notebook paper and spirals and dry erase markers everywhere.  His hair looked like he just crawled out of bed - after he brushed it.  He wore a shirt with bleach stains on it.  Oh yes he did.  On the first day of school.

After school I got a text from Kloe saying she wouldn't be at her usual pickup spot, but instead was by the front doors of the school.  Of course traffic was RIDICULOUS, because every parent in the known world picks up their kid on the first day of school (WHY?).  So I waited and waited and waited in the pickup line (normally I can just drive right through the middle because of where she usually waits), only to get to the front and....no Kloe.

I found a parking place where I could see the front of the school and I started the search.  After a while I found her, standing over to the side, talking to a group of friends, totally not watching for me at all.  Grrr.  So I waited awhile, hoping she would glance up and I could catch her attention, but no.  Finally, I climbed out of the car and began The March to the front of the school.  The poor Assistant Principal happened to be working traffic.  She smiled her big, beautiful smile at me and said, "HI!!  How's the first day of school?"  I practically growled at her.

I'm sure you can guess how the rest of that scenario went.

Happy first day of school.

Today started out even worse.  Even though we got up earlier, everyone was running later.  More procrastinating.  More tempers flaring.  More arguing.  When Kloe and I were ready to walk out the door, I asked Jacob, "Where's your lunch?"  He said, "I didn't make it yet."  What??  He said, "What am I going to do?"  And I barked said, "I don't know.  You're going to have to figure out a plan."

Fortunately for him, The Mister was still at home and had time to wait.  I took Kloe to school while he made his lunch, then came back home and got him.

And somewhere in the middle of all that it dawned on me.

It isn't them.  It isn't me.

It's SCHOOL.

It makes us all crazy.

We don't roll this way.  We're not organized, orderly, stay-in-the-lines kind of people.  We're more the march-to-our-own drummer, take our own sweet time to do it our own way kind of people, and it seems we just don't fit in the standardized school mold.

And yet we have no choice but to keep doing it, year after year after year.

What is it they say about the definition of insanity?  Yeah.  This.

And so in the midst of all the craziness, in the midst of the chaos and frustration and not knowing how to make it be any different, this mama rushed everyone out the door on the first day of school to do what we always do - take pictures before her little loves rush headlong back into another year of crazy.  Pictures that hopefully we'll look back on and remember all of the good - and not so much of the insanity.

And tomorrow morning we'll get up and do it all again (minus the pictures).

Kloe - 8th grade

Jacob - 5th grade

A moment of peace. :)