Tuesday, August 26, 2008

First Day First Grade


Today was Andrew’s first day of full day school. He’s in first grade. He’s such a big boy and such a little boy all at the same time. Sigh. Okay. That’s quite enough of that.

I’ll give you one snapshot of my day.

When a woman in the PTA stopped by to pick up some materials for the meeting tonight, the following things were going on in my house: George was sleeping, Gladys was stopping around in dress-up clothes with cookie-dough hands, cookies were baking, vegetables were in my braising pot ready to burn, mail was falling off the island, ribbons and card stock were on the floor from a just-done project, laundry was piled on the couch, the dryer was beeping with more, ingredients were everywhere, bags from Target were still on the floor, extra school supplies were in the front hall, my phone was out of batteries, a sandy baby blanket was still on my porch, sixteen pairs of shoes were by the door, crayons were under the table, and my son’s bus was returning from school in less than five minutes.

I don’t really know her all that well.

I forgot to find one of the sheets she needed.

When I ran upstairs to print a new one, she stirred my vegetables.

I gave her the sheet. I put shoes on the feet for which I’m responsible (there were plenty of shoes to choose from). I turned off the braising vegetables, and ran out the door with my camera, just in time to get a HUGE hug from my son running off the bus.

Andrew was greeted with a very special cookie made by his sister.

We said prayers before dinner and ate a braised whole chicken in wine and herbs, on a clean table and over a (hastily) swept-clean floor.

I am pretty sure that is not how I expected Andrew’s first day of school to look on the day he was born.

I am glad I finally have things in perspective.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The picture of Andrew’s happy smiling face, waving after his first full day at school is too sweet. Aaw! It quite takes me back..gulp!

Your description of mad chaotic family life is accurate - and as it should be - albeit with an exhausted mother at the end of the day....although you seem to have things pretty much in hand if you have spare energy to blog about it afterwards.

The special cookie was a sweet touch – creating good memories for them, that’s what it’s all about, I like to think.

P.S. Glad he recovered from the eye swelling :-D

enthalpymama said...

scatterbrain - I can't claim I have things in hand, but your blog was a nice, refreshing reminder. I read yours before I wrote mine this time. I don't normally do that but I needed inspiration.

Thankfully, Gladys wanted to make one BIG cookie, because I wasn't sure how I was going to have time to make all those cookies. We had never done that before and she loved patting them out on a big cookie sheet. It was such a lucky break. I can only give myself credit for seizing the opportunity!

Badass Geek said...

What a day! Glad it was full of good things.