First Day of School 2011!

The morning of the first day of school was uneventful until Jeff walked out the door to leave for work and noticed that his old red truck was missing...as in: STOLEN! Unbelievable. If we hadn't purchased our new van three weeks ago, we would have really been up a creek. What a blessing! Jeff was planning on commuting with that truck until it died, but this happened first. Fortunately, we have comprehensive coverage on the truck, which includes theft. Also, the officer who took the report told me there was another stolen vehicle reported on the same day just a half a mile down from us on our same street.

Sabrina and Anders were really excited about school starting, but Leif was dreading it. He hadn't forgotten all those hours of homework taking time away from other things he wanted to do. The day went well for all of the children, except little Eli who had just me to keep him company.

Anders wanted to be pick-up the first day, so I sent a note for his teacher. He gave it to her in the morning, but he says they made him get on the bus anyway. Nice. Next time I'll write two notes, one for the teacher and one for the bus driver. It all worked out, I followed the bus to the first stop and got him then. Also, I packed Anders a lunch, but the boy next to him told him to get hot lunch, so Anders came home with an envelope saying we owe $2. I explained to Anders the difference between hot lunch (provided by the school) and cold lunch (brought from home). He thought cold lunch meant you had something cold in your lunch. The next day he told me I had to pack something cold in his lunch. Silly! :) Anders is in a 1st/2nd combo class.

Sabrina has the same teacher she had last year because she was in a 3rd/4th combo class. The teacher is only teaching 4th grade this year. Sabrina says she has just one friend at school and she is in her class again this year. We've got to have her over sometime...

Leif came home in such a good mood and said he had a feeling this was going to be a good year! :) That's such a nice phrase for a parent to hear her child say! :) He seems to really like his teacher and the other children in his class. Last year Leif was in a 5th/6th combo class and was one of the smallest children in the class. Those sixth grader boys were ginormous! However, this year he seems to be about average size compared to the other boys in his class. Nice for him not to be the runt again! :)

And for me, that first day of school was so productive as far as housework goes. I haven't made it to cleaning out my children's bedrooms, but the rest of the house had a good clean. The next day while the other children were at school, Eli brought me the parchment paper, which has a picture of cookies on the box, and said, "Mom...make cookies." He's so cute and his little voice is so adorable, I had to do it! :)

Eli's been talking in sentences now. The other night when I told him it was time to go to bed, he said, "Mom...I don't want...to go to bed." Heh! Heh! I couldn't give in that time even though his speech was so adorable! :) Oh yea, and then another day last week I was on my bed looking at a cookbook, of all things, when he came in and climbed on top of me and tried to push the book away. I resisted because I really wanted to look at the book. After a minute of struggling to push the book away from me, Eli finally said, "Mom!...Give...me...hug!" Oh, sure! I put that book down immediately and hugged and squeezed and kissed my adorable little boy for as long as he wanted me to. What a sweetheart! :) I wish I could capture moments like that and put them in a bottle to be relived again 10, 20, 30+ years from now when I don't have my own little boy to demand my affections. Oh, kinda sad to think about that...