First Full Week of School

Whew…I’m so glad that’s over.

We got through the first full week of school (last week, which hence forth shall be call The Week of Hell or TWoH for short.)

I don’t know why it was so hard this year. I don’t remember it being this hard in years past.

Maybe it’s the fact that summer flew by. It feels like they just got out of school and here we are, back in, packing lunches each night, doing homework, laying out clothes and having arguments (Olivia!) over what to wear each morning.

Whatever it is, last week was full of it.

But so far, this week seems calmer, less hectic, less like I might need to get in my car and just start driving. And oh how awful I feel when I think like that. I mean, come on, we all know I’d never actually do it, but the fantasy is there if only because if I were in my car, driving away, the noise, the chaos, the stress that I felt during TWoH would be behind me.

I think part of my own stress is the fact that I never feel like I’m doing enough. Even when I’m so tired I could cry, or when my head hurts from who the hell knows, I feel like I should be sucking it up and giving more.

When I get cranky with the girls because it’s late and time for bed and they want one more minute of snuggle time, I feel awful because of course I should be grateful that they want to be near me. Of course I should be soaking this all in because someday they’re going to grow up and away from me.


And there’s Tom in the kitchen canning his hundredth jar of green beans or his fiftieth jar of salsa. Oh, wait, he’s going out to mow the lawn while the beans cool before he takes them out of the hot water bath. Watching him work makes me feel like a sloth. I feel like I can never, EVER keep up with him even though I leave the house all week long to go to work.

On the bright side (which might be why I’ve escaped TWoH) I did go through some clothes this past weekend and packed up four boxes for G, Tom’s granddaughter. She gets all of O’s hand-me-downs. I always tell her mom that once the clothes are in her hands, I truly do not care what happens to them. They can give them to other friends, donate them to their local Goodwill, burn them, whatever. I’m just always glad when they’re out of my house. Alas, those boxes are not yet out of my house, but they are off the ‘guest’ bed and in boxes, so I’m counting it as a job done on my part. Now it’s up to Tom, the hardest worker in our house, to get them to his van and to Huntington to G and her loving parents.

I feel like this post is coming across as negative when that wasn’t my intention.

What I meant to convey in the last 500 or so words is that this week has been way better than last week. We seem to be finding our groove, our schedule. Everyone and everything seems to have calmed down and we’re getting there.

Yeah, that’s what I wanted to say.