The Queen's Rambles

We survived the first week of school, barely. I don’t know how parents with less social kids handle the discombobulation of the first week. It was bad enough to go through a few nuclear meltdowns at unpredictable times. At least I didn’t have to put a crying boy on the bus, though dragging him out of bed this morning was no easy task. It’s a good thing I’ve started BodyPump again. When I say “dragging” I mean it literally.

Tonight he told me he liked kindergarten, but he doesn’t think he needs to go anymore. His main complaints are that he’s there too long and he’s hungry and the snack and lunch are too late. He usually eats two whole grain waffles for breakfast so I’m going to try my best to add some sausage or other high protein item to the table. I think that would help immensely, but he is not one to readily agree to changes in his breakfast routine.

At the beginning of the week he learned that the cafeteria serves grilled cheese sandwiches every day so he begged to buy a lunch. I was not prepared for that at all. I have always just assumed I would pack him a lunch so I would be able to provide him healthy food. I’ve worked at many schools and the food is mostly beyond awful. I don’t understand how the system works. They say they want our kids to be healthy, but they feed them utter crap and then weigh them and heckle them for their BMI?

Anyway, I looked over our school district’s menu and policy and it seems like they are trying to do the right thing. They offer a lot of whole grain choices and a lot of fresh fruits and veggies so I gave in and let him buy lunch. After seeing what he was actually eating out of his packed lunch, it didn’t seem to terrible. A grilled cheese isn’t any worse than three pretzels and a cookie.

That lasted two days, until he realized that the food was disgusting and people who brought in a lunch got to be first in line. He has also been eating everything I packed, so that’s a win.

A lady with kids at another school told a bunch of us first time kindergarten moms that we should send a pair of safety scissors in our kids’ lunch boxes so they could easily open packages. I thought that sounded like a brilliant idea, so I did it.

Well then.

Guess not all schools in the district allow that.

Our school counselor has been riding the bus each morning this week, so as soon as she arrived for bus duty she pulled me aside and told me that Erik had brought scissors to lunch and he must never do that again. I explained why they were in there. She kept focusing on Erik’s behavior, even though Erik had zip-zero-nada to do with it.

Nothing like trying to get your kid expelled for weapons during the first week of his school career!

It was not that serious, but it was still rattled my nerves. If they are allowed–required even!–to have safety scissors in class, what’s the big freakin’ deal? Especially if another school in the district allows it.

Anyway.

We had a pretty rotten night last night. I was sick. Elsa wouldn’t sleep. It was just your standard No Parenting Joy. I am so tired I could probably fall asleep right in this chair. I tried to take a nap with her later in the morning, but she was having none of it. As soon as I laid her in the bed she started kicking me in the stomach.

I did successfully put her down for a nap later in the afternoon! She fell asleep 30 minutes before the bus was due to arrive, so I tried my luck and hoped that her extreme tiredness would work in my favor.

It did and she slept in the bed for an hour! Luckily the baby monitor has range clear to the bus stop and she doesn’t get out of bed. She just lays there and scratches the sheets.

I managed to unload the dishwasher, put away most of my Costco purchases, vacuum and do some laundry! Isn’t my life exciting? She was none to pleased when she woke up.

My goal this month is to get her to fall asleep in the bed. I tried so hard yesterday, but as soon as she hits the bed she thinks it’s playtime. I finally took her downstairs at the point of no return (I have to have her down for real by 1:30 to keep our lives sane) and she fell asleep less than 5 seconds after she piled her Boppy and blankie on my lap.

Totally unrelated paragraph ahead.

I’ve almost decided I should start using gmail for all my needs instead of dealing with my other accounts. Problem? Several different Carries think they own the carriep@gmail.com e-mail address and have all their spam sent to me. They’ve ordered pizza with my e-mail, they’ve ordered hotel rooms, seafood buffet groupons, insurance quotes. Ugh. I totally forgot I even had a gmail account until a few months ago when someone tried to change the password and I was notified. There were a few personal e-mails in the mix as well, but they were rare enough that I don’t think the person really thinks carriep is their main e-mail address. First I thought it was just one person, but now I see at least three different last names. So far there’s Carrie Gale, Carrie Porter and Carrie Peterson. Dear Carrie, if you just googled yourself and found this entry, do another Carrie a favor and stop using my e-mail to sign up for things! Pretty please!