first day of school

[spacefem]

the girls are in 4th grade and 7th grade this year.

this past weekend my husband ran off on a trip with friends so I decided to make it the weekend OPERATION: DAYTIME. Like babies, the kids had their days and nights messed up. At back to school night all I could think about was how brutal monday morning would be. they were staying up all night doing whatever they wanted, TV, games, fighting with each other, then we'd let them sleep in until an embarrassingly late hour, sometimes well into the afternoon.

so I went back to the toddler days when we made the sunlight hours exciting, nights boring. I got them up and dragged them out. we went we were so busy that we were almost dead by the end of the weekend.

Friday I took them to lunch at my work and then we went to my parents house for dinner.

Saturday we woke up and hit the zoo for two hours then went to Arby's, the craft store, and swimming. We were swimming for a really long time at a lake where a friend was having a party... it was the Society of women engineers beach party! they had a great time.

Sunday we woke up did some shopping for school clothes and then in the afternoon we went to the Science Museum. One last time to use our pass for the summer before they all have to go back to school.

Honestly on Sunday I even fell asleep a little bit after lunch. we were kind of dragging... maybe because there was so much lake swimming the day before? we'd even paddled around on this stand up board thing that was a great time.

my dream came true Monday morning, they woke up *before* they were supposed to wake up. they were really excited, had everything laid out, their bags packed, and we made it.

the 12yo came home from school and immediately fell asleep on the couch and slept through multiple attempts to wake her up for dinner... but we'll get there.

Comments

[greghousesgf]

I would be super mad if I had to go back to school in mid August when I was a kid.

[spacefem]

YES! It sucks.

Apparently there's something about how the schools want their semesters split right at Christmas? But that's stupid. All I know is that my tax dollars are spent turbo-air conditioning all these public schools instead of paying teachers more, I say boo to that. And I have to tell kids that even though the days are swimming pool perfect, they're going to school.

[senmut]

Poor kids!

[elusivek]

By memory - it’s all over 30 years ago now so I’m not sure of the specifics haha - I don’t recall having any sort of lights off time. But because we had dogs, and everything was super on-schedule running around the dogs, we (the kids) were expected to follow the schedule to feed and walk the dogs. 6am dog walk, 7am dog breakfast. 7.30am head off to school. No change during the summer holidays, 6am dog walk, 7am dog breakfast, then whatever we decided to do: go back to sleep or continue on with the day. Mom would say a snide thing or two if we stayed up too late past midnight, but otherwise, it was a “I don’t really care what you do with yourself as long as the dogs are walked and fed at 6am and 7am respectively” sort of deal we had. Because of the must-do morning tasks, we really didn’t even feel like staying up late so we’d just go to bed at around 10ish pm.

There’s the evening schedule as well (5pm dog walk, 6pm dog dinner, 7pm human dinner).

[spacefem]

I think this is ideal... that is how the real world works! we get to decide our bedtimes, and live with the sleep-deprived consequences.

[andrewducker]

Sounds like a good weekend, and also a very tiring one! I hope they adjust okay soon.

[wantedonvoyage]

Wow you packed a lot into that weekend!

I feel like kids go back to school earlier and earlier. We never started until September.

[spacefem]

I haaaate starting before labor day, but nobody asks me :(

[adafrog]

Great idea.

[dandylover1]

At least it works with them. It never does with me. Since I can't see light, my body has no real sleep pattern. Even if I am able to start one, I can't change it, or I'll lose the progress that I made. This makes it not worth it, since I would be tied to a specific time of waking and sleeping, and even then, there is no guarantee that I would actually sleep anyway. I hope they now have their schedules straight and will be prepared for school. I can't imagine going back to school in August. We always started in September.

[lantairvlea]

Our kids have been in school for a month already, which is a pro/con thing. They get two weeks off on October and March when the weather is actually decent. It's a modified year-round schedule.

Hopefully the girls are settled in their routine now!