School Starts!

Yesterday, we raced around to finish plans for Robin's birthday party at Splash Island, Plainfield's water recreation park. It was the hottest day of the season. Good day for swimming! Everyone gathered at the same time. She had a nice celebration of her 7th birthday, complete with cousins from Tennessee and friends from Plainfield. The outside portion of the pool closes at 6:00, but we were allowed to swim inside thereafter for no extra charge. Left about 7:00, then had the whole evening's drill to do before bed. *Paragraph break* Today is the first day of school in Plainfield...full day. Both children will be riding the bus--Robin in the AM and Ryan in the PM for Kdg., except today when I decided to deliver them, myself. I was thinking how nice it would be for both of them to be able to sleep in a little later than when they had to go to their other grandparents' when Meg left for work last school year...BUT...I forgot about "school jitters". Ryan crawled into bed with me a 3:40 AM, and Robin was up at 6:00. So much for that! *We delivered Robin to her classroom at the appointed time. She found her desk and unloaded her supplies. She knew a couple of kids in her class so there was no great trauma. We hugged and went on our way. Ryan proved to be almost as stalwart. When I delivered him to his classroom, he was shy...hung back a little bit...but wasn't terrified. His teacher said the greeting was "hug, high five, or hand shake". He chose hand shake...then went in to play with things on the tables, as instructed. *I had to take his immunization record and his physical restriction note to the nurse, then came home with a sigh. (You can't tell that the young'un had a major bike accident just five days ago. His face is all but healed, and he complains of nothing. He can't wait for his restrictions to be gone. Heck, he still has adhesive on him from the tape holding his IV line and ECG probes in place!) *I'm not the children's parent, but I feel like I want to sit down and write whole documents about the kids for their teachers. "Ask Ryan about dinosaurs." "Give Robin a chance to create." "Robin is a perfectionist and won't attempt something she doesn't think she can do well." "Ryan is an over-confident dare-devil with a temper." But ya know? I don't ever remember feeling the need to do that with their mother. I think when YOU are the parent, you just cross your fingers and hope because stress levels are so high. When you are the grandparent, you want everyone to appreciate them the way that you do. Heh heh...when Meg was in middle school, I did write a poem or two to her teachers about this and that. It was a much better way of complaining than sending nasty-grams. Her science teacher loved one particular poem so much, she had it framed and claimed she was going to try to have it published in a science journal! And so it goes... *For those of you who wondered if I would miss going back to school this month, I have one thing to say: HAHAHAHAHA!!! Not a chance! Three of the teachers at the kids' school are my former pupils. I take some comfort in that. I gladly pass the torch to those who have more energy and youth than I. I repeat: gladly!