First Day of School

Most parents take a photo of their child's very first day of school. Most parents are taking a photo of a five, perhaps six year old. Dressed in an adorable new "first day of school" outfit, hair combed neatly, big smile or perhaps a tear on their face. Me? I had to back up several times to get all 6'4" of him in the picture.

Well, the hair is washed. The socks are new. The backpack is pretty new too. The outfit was his choice. The Green Day shirt only has a few tiny holes in it. He has plenty of shirts without holes, but I suspect it has the feel of a security blanket to it.

Yesterday, several times, he turned to me and said "Tomorrow I go to school!" with an amazed tone. He did really well, laying out everything he'd need in the morning. Planning his time. Setting his alarm. Going to bed at a reasonable hour (10:30 pm) so he'd get enough sleep.

Me, not so much. I stayed up trying to finish putting back books on one more bookshelf. Putting things back together is going as slowly as taking them apart. It was just one shelf, but it was one shelf about 18-20 feet long because the shelf runs high up along the ceiling across the length of the living room. This meant taking down the books that were up there, taking them all outside to knock all the dust off them, climbing up on furniture or ladders to wipe down the shelf, coming back down to integrate the new books with the ones that were going back up, and climbing back up to shelve the books. Up, down, up, down, dust, cough, cough. Earlier in the evening I also finished putting books on a shelf that are squeezed in behind the entertainment cabinet, which was a matter of climbing, sometimes falling back and forth over the raised fireplace hearth. I have the scraped and bruised shins to show for my effforts.

So, I didn't go to bed until almost 2 am. Then I told myself I'd "just read a few pages" - ended up staying up another 45 minutes trying to finish my book. Gave up about ten pages to the end. Still, I was too nervous to go back to sleep four and a half hours later when I heard William up and getting ready this morning. He'd asked if I'd drive him the first day. Of course. I got up and read mail while he finished his breakfast and I remembered he needed lunch money (lunch money!) and forced him to pose for a photo.

So, my baby (sniff) is off having a new adventure. 8:35 am - he's fifteen minutes into his first period as I type this sentence. He won't be back home until almost 6 pm tonight, after football practice is over. A long day. A very.... yawwwwwn.... long day.

Me? Rosie's waiting for me to come back to bed. That sounds like a good idea.