Ahh the first week of school. The smell of crisp fall mornings, school supplies and fresh baked cookies. Oh ya and you can add screaming, hysteria in the school parking lot to that list because that’s what we got a bag full of this week!

GENA…Our first day of kindergarten was met with tears…mine…my daughter, she did just fine. I would go as far to say that she was an old pro by the 3^rd day!  Day number 5? Well that’s another story…

     I work on Tuesdays (I call it my vacation day).  This Tuesday was the first one that I did not help daddy get the kids out the door.  Let me just preface this all by saying that he is a wonderful man on many levels!  So he gets her to school and as they start to get out of the car, she realizes that her backpack has been left behind…(the one that I packed the night before and left hanging on her hook by the door…) and so it began.  As daddy was getting our son out of the car the dog jumped out and started to run around the parking lot. Nevaeh started a full on melt down because of not having her beloved backpack and snacks, so she locked the car door as daddy was trying to get the dog and hold the toddler.  Every time he would get the doors unlocked and go to get her, she would move to the front or back seat, wherever he was not.  So at this point he was chasing the dog, dealing with a crazy boy and starting to loose his patients (big time) with his daughter who is now screaming and freaking out!  He decided to do what any good dad would do, call grandma J  She arrived shortly and amazingly enough even she couldn’t  get Nevaeh to calm down.  So after 15 minutes of insanity, they got her settled just enough to get in grandmas car and go home.  Score one kindergartner! 

     Needless to say she and I had a little talk and I actually stayed calm (because down deep I thought it was hilarious!!!) and we ended up writing an apology letter to daddy, and delivered it to him across the room, and her teacher got one to explaining “I forgot my backpack and it made me so really sad that I forgot my snacks and I will not do it again”. 

     Lesson learned?  She probably wont do it again, and daddy?  I think he will be “sick” next Tuesday!

Ahhhh School is fun!

I knew it was bad when I could hear Sawyer screaming when I opened my car door in the back parking lot at school. I ran up the sidewalk to find him in full on meltdown mode laying on the ground in front of the buses. The problem: Sawyer is obsessed with buses and wanted to rise one home…unfortunately I am a control freak and hated the bus growing up so consequently I made a decision in the forth grade that my kids would NEVER ride the bus…

So, there we were…Sawyer , Mrs. G and I duking it out on the ground trying not to be run over by the millions of kids and parents trying to leave the school. When I saw that he was about to blow, I picked him up WWF style and squeezed him tightly (tight hugs and compression tend to help kids on the spectrum… it wasn’t abuse I promise.) Anyway, Sawyer’s a BIG boy so lifting him up into the cradle position wasn’t an easy feat, in fact I’m pretty sure the entire third grade saw my butt crack. 

After that I followed the special needs parent’s unspoken “code of conduct”: Kept my head down, ignored the stares of judgmental parents and got the HELL out of there. When I got Soy safely to the van his teacher suggested cutting him back to half days for a while… big bummer. The funny thing was, we weren’t even out of the parking lot before Sawyer was happy and smiling again saying, “Wow, I had the best day ever! I love my knew school.” I was glad that he was able to shake it all off so easily… I, on the other hand was a sweaty, crying, wreck. I came home desperately searching for my drug of choice… FOOD. Unfortunately we never keep anything too bad in the house, I was however, able to scrounge 1/4 pint of freezer burned ice cream and some stale envrio kids coco crispies with half and half on top. 

The good news is Sawyer has really turned things around this week and will be able to return to full days on Monday… when he will also ride the bus for the first time in his life:(:( The bad news is I found out some moms were talking smack about Sawyer’s “behavior” behind my back… apparently living through the hell of high school once wasn’t punishment enough, so we get to start all over again when our kids start school… but that’s a story for a different post when mama’s in a nicer more forgiving mood.

Do you have any good “first week of school” stories? Do tell… because we want to feel better about oursleves…and because misery love company:)