Success!

One week of school down. . .how many to go?

I had thought that the first two weeks of school prior to my scheduled gall bladder surgery, I would have some time to catch up on blogging, finishing reading that novel I have been working on for a few weeks (Friday Night Knitting Club. . .for some reason can't get through it!), watching Regis and Kelly and maybe even catch Oprah once or twice. Not a chance. Haven't even had the TV on during the day or picked up a book. I did manage to get a Shutterfly album done, but that was easy - I uploaded the pics in order and hit "auto-fill."

It makes me wonder how I will manage to fit in working 4 days a week. But as everything -we'll adjust. It will mean packing three lunches and two snacks every day (really, why do the kids need snack right before lunch? Know what I do? I just take part of their lunch and pack it as the snack. That's as much as they'd eat in a day if they were home). It will mean getting up at 6:00 instead of 6:30 and will mean packing dance clothes, ice skating clothes and all other after school activities in the car the night before. It will mean fitting in groceries, laundry, cleaning, mowing and errands all on my one day off and weekends. It will mean less time to work on Girl Scouts and other volunteer projects and less time to chat with friends.

I do enjoy work, but I don't look forward to the harried feeling that I will have until we adjust.

Just like I do enjoy feeling well and being able to enjoy a burger, ice cream or pizza now and then, but I don't look forward to having IVs, anesthesia and pain meds to deal with. Ick.

Oh well, I know it's all part of life and part of our responsibilities. I just hope I can look past the transitions over the next few weeks and enjoy the "right now." It will be great having my mom here again so soon to help out and hopefully I'll feel great in just a day or two and can enjoy the visit more than have her wait on me.

Kylie had her first ice skating lesson yesterday and there was a horrendous traffic back up (bridge construction + medical emergency + accident at exit 2) that made us almost 15 minutes late. Since I knew we were going to be really late, I told Melanie to help Kylie put her skates on in the backseat and I would carry her in (we had to drop Melanie off at piano first on the way to skating). When they started to put the skates on, they realized one skate didn't have it's lace. Ugh! (Long story as to why). So I took my left shoe off, threw it in the backseat and told Melanie to unlace it and use my lace for the skate. Unfortunately, Melanie hasn't really ever laced up shoes by herself before and was having difficulty following my visual demonstrations from the front, so I had her pass me the skate and I started it while we were sitting at a dead stop on Rt 130. Dropped Mel quickly at her lesson, then continued on to the rink while Kylie in the backseat kept telling me the lace wasn't long enough. Get to the rink and I see that both skates are laced REALLY loosely, so I quick try to tighten them. Then I carried Kylie in while I was walking without one lace. . .NOT easy. Finally I set her down in the parking lot in her skates while I took off my sneaker and walked in - one shoe on and one shoe off. Lessons had already started and were well under way. If you've never been to Gallo for lesssons, let me set the visual. Tons of kids on the ice. . .tons of parents milling around the sign up table. Confusion since it was the first day and disorganization. Finally I got someone who could help direct Kylie to the right class and off she went with a teacher. I took a deep breath and limped my way up the stairs to watch from the bleachers. Just as I sat next to a nice, warm looking mom who obviously appreciated the stress I was under, I noticed the teacher examining Kylie's skates. . .what? Couldn't she have a sneaker shoelace?? The teacher starts scanning the crowd so I stand up, collect my things, hobble back down the steps and they find me in the crowd. "Her laces are way too loose. You need to tighten them." I utter an apology and a quick excuse, "traffic, rushed, sorry." I spend a few minutes REALLY tightening the laces AGAIN and send her back out. This time the class (the most beginner class she can be in) skates away, all unassisted, leaving Kylie clinging to the wall. Tears start. . .I feel horrible and think I should just take her and go, but then one of the teachers skates back, takes her hand and Kylie's face lights up as she takes her first few tentative steps. Then, she was skating. Class ended shortly after and Kylie had managed to skate by herself for a few of those minutes. When she came off the ice she was beaming (I was worried she would think she was the worst in the class), but she said, "Mommy, I can skate! I want to stay and keep skating!" Made all the stress melt away.

School has gone well. The girls are really enjoying themselves. I'm so lucky to have kids who really like school and enjoy learning. Seems like Melanie is going to have a big homework load, but somehow we'll fit it all in!