Three out of four of my smalls are now in full-time primary school. Grade three, one and Junior Kindergarten – Oh my.  And I have vacillated between excited and sad and relieved. With all three boys in school during the day, I’ll have one-on-one time with Miranda for the first time ever and that is exciting for me to think about. With all three boys in school during the day, I won’t get to see or talk to any of them for many hours during the day and that makes me sad to think about. With all three boys in school during the day, it marks a reprieve from the long, hot, dog days of summer where my sanity was tested hourly with brawling, bawling and, at times, all out war between all four of them, and the (even temporary) end of those days makes me sigh with relief that a) there’s a break from it and b) that we all survived it.
But today was just trial run. We laid everyone’s clothes and knapsacks out the night before. I made banana pancakes to send them off with a special breakfast (the rest of the year it’s pretty much cereal, milk and a banana 🙂 ). We were relatively calm and organized all things considered. Everything was a-ok, okey-dokey, perfect, even. Drop off Pax at school – no problems. See bigger boys onto their bus – no problems. It’s all good today. Pax only went to JK from 8:30 until 10am today as an introduction so now he’s home with me again and that makes my life happy 🙂 (Even though as soon as he got home he coloured his leg and brand new sock with another one of those damned Crayola markers – argh!).
And then I get home from picking up from school and see a missed call on my cell phone. Odd – almost nobody ever calls my cell. I check the landline too. Another missed call. Hmmm, the boys school? Double odd – it’s only the first day and not even lunch time yet. God, I hope nobody has thrown up. So, when I call the school back and I hear “Oh, hi! It’s ok, we FOUND him.” My stomach falls through my feet. Um, what was that? Come again? Found who and where the hell was he and how in the name of Clint Eastwood (he’s a boss, by the way) did you lose him ? But instead I say in a very calm and friendly voice – “oh, good. Found who, again?” “Oh, Mason, but it’s ok now.” “Oh, good. Um, where was he?” “Oh, he just went to the wrong class. But we got it all sorted out now.” I glance again at the clock on my laptop 10:15 a.m. and say goodbye to the voice on the phone that just scared the living shit out of me. But I do it politely, nicely and with a smile in my voice because I was raised right AND I’m Canadian and that is just how we do things around here. But, back to it though, I hang up the phone and scroll through the missed calls. I missed that call at 10:00 a.m. The boys got to school at 9:00 a.m. So for ONE HOUR Mason was lost and unfound.  A whole HOUR.
Now I am a (mostly) reasonable and (legally) sane mother,so I do not expect the school to teach my children morals, manners and it would seem, grammar (from a quick look at the curriculum), but I DO expect that while my children are AT school, that once they exit the school bus that they will not be misplaced or left to fend for themselves when it comes to figuring out who their teacher is on the first day of school. I think we can do a little better than this people.
I cannot wait to hear Mas’ account of his first adventures in the third grade. I just hope it does not end with another armpit fart.  I am one THOUSAND percent sure (a la the claims of  Maury baby-mamas) that the armpit fart will dampen my enthusiasm for the story significantly. It always does.*grin*
And so begins another school year. Yippppeee!