FDOS 2012

First Day of School 2012.

Woohoo...happy day!  My kiddos are back in school. 

I can feel all my teacher friends casting me dirty looks as I type this.

We took the usual photos this morning:

I was supposed to work today but with all the chaos that is looming around the corner of time, I asked to take a day off.

I froze a few peaches that finally were ripe, I did loads of laundry, I tidied up the house, I talked to a friend from Chicago who I hadn't talked to in months, I made up fresh linens on the beds, and I had steak for lunch.

Yep. Steak. For. Lunch. 

I've been slowly working through clearing out/organizing my freezer and came across a yummy strip steak.  Someone gave me beef awhile back and I guess it got tucked into the corner of my freezer.  My kids are insanely picky eaters (they do get it honest) and I figured why waste a tender steak on someone who wouldn't eat it. 

So I ate it.  All by myself and it was the best steak and most enjoyable meal in a long time.  No one yelled, no one spilled anyone, no one turned their nose up.  It was wonderful. 

Tomorrow is back to work.  Not sure when my next day off will be.  But that just made today that much sweeter. 

As a fun comparison, I am posting two pics of the kids side by side.  One is from the last day of school last year and the first day of this school year.  I know, kinda backwards, but thats typical of me.

Amazing how much they grew over the summer...

School lets out at 3pm.  The boys had rode their bikes but Rhianna walked with me.  I told them I would meet them at the crossing guard. 

Rhianna came running first:

Riley next, but rode by me so fast I didn't get a picture.

Reagan finall came, riding his bike, looking so cute.  I tried taking a picture of him but he kept riding too fast and they were all blurry.  Finally he said "MOM.  Let me ride!!"

 By this time the dark clouds had broken open and the rain started to fall.  The boys rode on ahead of us girls so Rhianna and I just held hands and walked in the rain.

I tried to get her to lift her face towards heaven and enjoy the rain drops on her face.

She wasn't too impressed.

As we turned the corner onto North Second Street, the clouds went from raining to pouring.  There were no cars in sight so we walked down the middle of the street in the pouring rain.  I tried to get Rhianna to dance in the rain but again, she wasn't too impressed. Poor girl.  Her mom is sooo weird.

She told me later that she had a really bad day at school...thankfully after day three (I'm finally getting around to posting this...interent kept kicking me off with every photo I would load.) she is enjoying her class.  I honestly think the biggest problem is that she misses her 1st grade teacher something terrible.  We talked to her tonight at the park and Mrs. F said that any time Rhianna needs to talk after school to just pop in her room.  Later at bedtime, Rhianna cried saying that made her feel so much better.  I think we'll survive 2nd grade now ;o) 

The boys had great days but didn't tell me much.  All Riley reported was that they only get ONE recess this year.  (Horror to a boy.)  Reagan too, only talked about recess.  Boys.  Gotta love them.

I think we are going to have another good year this year.  From the looks of things we won't make it through the entire school year at Rittman Elementary.  While we have been preparing for this for a long time, its still bittersweet.  I love this school and have made wonderful friends in the staff and other parents.  My children have had a wonderful educational foundation here and when the time comes to leave, we will go with only good memories.