Back to School 2021-2022

The kids headed back to school this morning. I'm definitely feeling mixed emotions. More so than usual. Why does the first day of school still make my stomach flip-flop, even as an adult? Ugh, I hate that. 

Anthony is entering 9th grade, so it's his first year in High School. I can't even believe it. The other day I was thinking that we only have four more years with him at home, and I spent the next hour crying, wanting to throw up. Four more years is all I get with everyone under the same roof. I can't really cope with that yet. 

I try to hide my sadness about the passing time because Anthony has been incredibly anxious about entering High School, and I don't want him to see my anxiety and think it has anything to do with how things will be for him in school. It just breaks my heart to know he is feeling so anxious and worried, despite my best efforts to let him know everything will be ok. He went to an orientation, and I've gone over his schedule with him many, many times. I've done all I can to help him prepare and try to ease his mind, so now all I can do is let him feel his feelings and assure him that it's ok and normal to feel anxious. He will be ok. He just needs time to adjust. Change can be scary. 

Molly is feeling pretty confident to enter 7th grade, but I was also, just by luck, able to do a little private tour of her hallway with her when we went to the Middle School to finish up all her paperwork for volleyball sign ups last week. So that helped her to feel more prepared.

Timothy doesn't say much. I know he would rather stay home, hahaha, but he is excited for a new backpack and to be the big man on campus this year (4th grade!).

This is also the first year that I have all three kids in all different schools. Tim in Primary, Molly in Middle, Anthony in High. It feels like so much work to juggle three different schools with three different start times, end times, office staff, and teachers.  Molly will have volleyball every day after school this fall, as well as horse group once a week that'll make her miss volleyball that day. Tim still has piano once a week. Anthony wants to do jazz band that is a few days a week at 7am. Anthony and Molly will both have monthly orthodontist appointments that will make them miss the end of the school day each time. It's hard on them when they miss class. *sigh* I don't know. I'm worried I won't be able to make everything work. It's hard living 20 minutes out of town. Not to mention who knows what things will look like after school starts, in a month, two months, six months, etc. with Covid. At this point I feel like anything could happen. We've gotten pretty good with rolling with the punches. But we definitely are wanting things to get back to "normal." 

It's going to be an interesting year. I just pray that it is a good one, for all of us. 

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In years past, we've always done back to school photos on the morning of. In order to do this, Sam would go into work late, everyone had to wake up extra early, and we all ran around crazy tying to get ready so we had enough time to take photos before heading to the bus stop. We managed to always get the task done, but inevitably we would all be feeling rushed and stressed. 

I'd like to think I've been doing a better job the past year or so managing stress and learning what to let go of to make life easier and more enjoyable. Back to school photos on the morning of? Let that shit go. 

I took everyone's back to school photos this past Sunday, after Sam got off work. Who cares that they weren't taken on the actual first day of school. No one else does, so neither do I. 

No one felt rushed this morning, and I was able to concentrate on the kids and how they were feeling before getting on the bus. It was nice. 

 

Really hoping they all have a good first day. I'll be driving in to pick them up because I have parent-teacher connection meetings with all their teachers, one after the other, after school today! Hoping for smiling faces all around and to hear excitement in their voices when they fill me in on how the day went. 

With love,

Mama Hauck