Checking Off The List

I woke up at 4:18am again this morning.  Thankfully this time I fell right back to sleep.  I was startled awake again at 7:04am by the sound of laughing happy kids - such a lovely way to start the day.  I jumped out of bed thinking about getting out the door for 8:15 so we could be at school in time for the kids meeting with their teacher and I realized that the days of waking up without an alarm are almost at an end.  For six years I have been basically alarm free.  Sigh.  One more change in this season of changes.

Anyway.  On a positive note, the kids' teacher seems great.  She was kind and engaging with the kids and seems like she'll be a lot of fun.  I feel good about leaving my kids in her care.  It was also nice to be able to have the answer to some of those questions that were keeping me up yesterday in the wee hours.  I now know which door to drop them off and pick them up at.  I know what time school starts and ends.  I know which door they will use to go outside at recess.  I know they do in fact need a snack for Friday.  All this knowing is very relieving.  So relieving that I have a massive pounding headache from the emotional letdown.  Though I'm pretty sure the headache started in the middle of the grocery store this morning.

In hindsight, planning to do a big grocery shop after the kids' first meet and greet with their teacher was probably not the best idea.  Which I decided in the middle of my shopping trip after Ava had spent 10 minutes hugging her stomach and crying, Tristan had been arguing with me for about 10 minutes about lunch snacks and Sebastian had been crying because I said no to gum since we were so close to the cookie aisle.  I haven't been that hot in a store in a long time!  You know the kind of heat I mean right, moms?  That agitated, need-to-remove-extraneous-clothing, lost-control-wish-you-could-make-your-kids-stop, wish-you-were-anywhere-but-here kind of feeling.  I admit it, I caved.  I gave everyone a piece of gum to make them be quiet so people would stop glaring at me.  Shortly after the gum we got to the cookie aisle.  I could see the light at the end of the hellish shopping trip tunnel.  And that was when I ran over two sets of toes with an overflowing cart because the kids kept darting in front of me while I was pushing. 

And then we had to pay. 

Do I need to say more?  While I was bagging my groceries - can I just take a minute and say how much I HATE bagging - Tristan climbed up onto the metal bag holder things at the end of the checkout lane and was balancing precariously on them.  Ava bumped into a lady with a walker because she wasn't watching where she was going and Sebastian was crying because he lost one of his Littlest Pet Shop characters somewhere in the store.  I asked the kids if they wanted to retrace everywhere we had been in the huge store to find it.  They choose a moment of silence.  I'm sorry you got left behind Pet Shop Pig but in every war there are casualties.  I honour you for your commitment to the battle of staving off boredom and tears and I thank you for your sacrifice.  May your new home treat you well wherever it ends up being.

So here we are.  First school experience done.  Next on the list is their half-day Friday when I will drop them off and leave.  Weird!  All I need to do before now and then is pull out their Fall clothes, quiz them on our street address and tell them where babies come from.  Piece of cake right?