Back to School

I don’t know where the last few weeks have gone.  If we still lived in California, our kids would have just started school this week, so it’s still not super late to post back to school photos, right?  And truth be told, this post is really for the grandma’s…. does anyone else care?  I won’t be offended if you don’t care! 

   

For the first time in a long time, Taylor wasn’t very nervous about school.  That’s good… Megan needed him to be a rock.  She was SUPER nervous! 

Now that she’s been in High School a full 5 weeks, she loves it.  The first week was rough.  She had a really hard time with the homework load (5+ hours a night) and she got lost and was late to class a couple times.  The possibility of ASD was more than she could handle.  By day 3, she was physically sick with anxiety over everything.  She couldn’t eat, she couldn’t sleep and she felt nauseous around the clock.  Eric gave her an extra blessing and I gave her some Meclizine to help her sleep and tame the nausea.  There were a lot of tears shed and I wondered how she would ever adapt, but she did.  Every day got easier and now she loves it.  I think the only thing she dreads is the Friday Swim Academy routine.  Friday is the day they do weight training, and it’s hard.  But she LOVES seminary and most of her other teachers.   Taylor loves his schedule.  He is taking AP Biology and Honors Chem, which keep him very busy.  Of course, he LOVES swimming and swim team is already well under way.  His goal is to make it to the State Meet this year. 

   

I wasn’t able to get a picture of all four kids together because Taylor and Megan started school before these two were even out of bed.  They love the shirts I got them for the first day of school.   They are both obsessed with Angry Birds and Lego Star Wars.  I still can’t believe Ian is in his last year of Elementary School and Brayden is in 1st grade.  I still don’t know what to do with myself, sometimes… but that’s a subject for another post.  Brayden has had a rough adjustment to first grade.  I can’t really explain why.  I think it’s just become a complete reality for him that when he’s at school, he’s not the “baby” or the “center of attention” in his class.  He’s had all kinds of problems, from pee accidents to crying meltdowns.  It’s getting better, but we are currently having to resort to a sticker chart for good behavior.  If he’s had a good day at school, he gets a sticker.  When he accumulates 10 stickers, I will bring McD’s to the cafeteria for lunch.  Ian LOVES school so far.  He has his first male teacher and he LOVES him.  All the kids love him.  Mr. H is like a rock star to these guys.  Ian’s only struggle with school is his reading assignments.  Each quarter he needs to read 4 AR books.  For Ian, that’s tough.  He hates reading, so we have a deal similar to Brayden’s.  Every day that he spends 30 minutes reading his AR book, he gets a sticker.  I’m hoping these two reach the 10 sticker mark at the same time.  That will minimize the amount of McD’s I have to eat next week!

The boys (meaning, Ian) didn’t want me going with them to the bus.  So I did what a good mother does, I waited 2 minutes, grabbed my longest lens, and followed them, like a stalker, to the bus stop!

I’ve decided it doesn’t matter how long or short summer break is.  When you get down to the last week or two before school starts, the kids get jittery.  Summer was glorious until the last week before school.  Then the tempers started to flare, whining ensued and arguments abounded.  It was enough to make me GLAD to send them all back!  The sight of the school bus taking the boys away to school for 8 hours was the greatest thing in the world!