Now That the First Week is Behind Us

The first week of school came and went.  This is a solidarity post for all of us who made it through.  They (whoever "they" are) say that three weeks is a magic number for how long it takes children to settle in at school and get in a good rhythm.  That means I'm a third of the way out of the back-to-school adjustment zone!

A Superhero, A Giraffe, and A Honeybee

If you, like me, are a parent of a kindergartener- twelfth grader you might be sleeping in this morning!  You have been handling a lot!

All week long you have:

• Filled out paperwork
• Handled melt-downs after school
• Tried to feed the ravenous beings that get in the car when school lets out so that they don't eat their own arm because they last ate at 10:27 AM!
• Forgotten about your third child's Kindergarten Parent Night (true story)
• Cried when you realized a day later that you forgot your last baby's only first Kindergarten Parent Night and there will never be another one of those!
• Filled out even more paperwork
• Made a last-minute store run to pick up a bag of candy that your oldest, very responsible child reminded you approximately 997 times that she needed by Friday and you kept responding to those reminders with "I know, it will happen!" and then you realized that there were no more days until "it will happen!" so you sent Dad right to the store after school drop-off with a list only to realize that she still needed colored socks?!? (which you are told serve the purpose of erasers for dry-erase boards, naturally :)
• Prayed none of your kids would catch the thing that is already going around after one of your kids happily reports that three kids went home from class with a high fever
• Fixed lunches, snacks, extra water for the one who has to be all the way out in a portable far away from any known source of hydration
• More paperwork, this time not from the school but from the PTA
• Forgot someones lunch
• Forgot to send the right amount of lunch money
• Tried to find very good hiding places for those bags of candy that your child's sweet teacher gave them on the first day of school when everything was full of promise and hope!
• Carefully, and stealthily thrown away some of that candy because it contained things your children were allergic to but they were so excited about they just thought one tiny piece would be ok..."just please, please, please, this once- I promise everything will be OK, Mom, please?!"
• Started fund-raising!  seriously?!  Already, hustling CitySaver Coupon Books so that your middle child can get the beloved Fox Prize (a small light-up fox) all the while thinking she also still gets to keep the coupon books and cried when you told her she had to actually sell them and hand them to the purchasing person, not just get money and get to keep the product ;)

And after all that you are probably just plain tired!

This week on Instagram, I have been sharing some of my tips on how to ease the transition from the hustle and bustle of school back to home.  Helpful things to do to empower our kids for a better evening at home after their little minds are on high alert all day getting used to a thousand new things.  

Find out what we are up to here

Today's final tip, though, is just for Parents.  Here it is: 

Take good care of yourself.  Give yourself Grace and Freedom this weekend.  Enjoy having a messy home and less tired feet because you are soaking them in a sea-salt bath instead of cleaning the bathroom that really is past due for a cleaning; take a leisurely stroll around your yard and revel in ALL that you accomplished this week- ALL that your kids accomplished; be tired if you need to be; be a little cranky if you need to vent and commiserate!

Other people teaching our children, how school is much looked forward to throughout the last couple weeks of summer- this is a gift!  We can settle in and be OK with the gift and the hard of going back to school!  So relax, take turns sleeping in!, and validate all that you did for your family this week!  And don't think too much about Monday ;)