First day of school

 

The first day of school was today. I think we should call it the saddest pandemic day for me yet. 

No haircuts, no new outfits, no new shoes, no rush to catch the bus.

In fact, I sat on the porch and watched the bus drive by without my children in it and had a little pity party. The kids have ALWAYS gone to school, starting at age 2. 

Unlike me, they don’t care at all that they weren’t on the bus.

(Jack has decided he prefers glasses to contacts, but the blue coating was all you could see.) 

We’ve had computer issues (and the school says no more chromebooks). 

And I am back to driving jack to school every day for orchestra. It reminds me of the days when I had to drive him to school every day for kindy. That, too, was a difficult school choice, choosing the path only travelled by ten or so other parents in our entire district that year. I’m not sorry I did it. I’m sure one day I won’t be sorry I made this choice either. (It helps that during the ride he asks me about going to Stanford. He’s starting to dream of things beyond us! Hurray!) 

But, it did sting again at 430 when the schools started texting about how amazing it was to be back at school. 

Ah well. Someday they will all be at places like Stanford (god willing) and this, too, will be a rear view mirror memory.

Time warp

Time continues to pass in the weirdest fashion. It’s both amazingly fast and excruciatingly slow. We swim every day. The yard skinks are fat from summer bugs. The weather is oddly amazing. Americans continue to die at alarming rates. Everyone continues to fight about everything - numbers, masks, schools, economy, leadership. 

I continue to be thankful the kids are mostly sheltered from this bullshit. 

It truly feels endless at this point. 

I upped my back to school theme this year with pillows and some glass ornaments. There are no buses coming for my children though.

The kittens continue to grow (and get in everything).

We played around with some costumes I found in the basement. The kids have grown SO MUCH during this. Inches for them both. I often wonder if it’s coincidence or if being at home has been that much better for them.

Bolt is completely bonkers.

The garden has given us so many peppers! Not enough tomatoes though. The plants are starting to look end of summer terrible. I’m hoping the last peppers turn before I need to replant the greens.

 One branch is starting to change already. 

Summer definitely feels long in the tooth already.

I logged into blogger to discover that after 15 years there is a new interface. Here’s hoping it’s working!

Decisions? Check.

 The decisions about school are mostly done. After paying our kids therapist to help us make the decision with jack, our kids will be staying home. Some things are still uncertain with Jack bc of availability, but our part is done.

Things remain much the same here - stay home as much as possible, work on making some areas of the house more “always live at home” friendly (Dave’s office is the current project), swim, watch tv, play with kittens, putter in the garden.

 We’ve had a lot of peaches this year, but the never ending squirrel battle rages on. Still, there’s been enough to put some in the freezer, and feed us too,

 I bought a vase at goodwill, but it took two weeks to get in the grocery store to buy flowers.

 The kittens remain everything we never knew we needed.

The hummingbirds have returned  in Force.

 The thrifts have occasionally been very generous.

Cases of Covid in Missouri are exploding. The mask debate rages on. Schools and camps that have attempted to open find they are overwhelmed with Covid quickly. Baseball briefly resumed, the cardinals now have 13 positive cases and have had to shut down already. It lasted about ten days maybe.

Honestly, it’s easier to just stay home anyway. Here it’s easy to forget the absolute madness going on everywhere.