weekly 2014.8.24

Rebekah was thrilled to go back to school this week. I wondered if a full day of class would be hard for her, but it didn’t even seem to faze her. She comes home every day telling me about all her new friends.

Harry is moderately happy to be back to school, but he won’t admit it. His teacher informed us that he will never have to bring homework home because everything, everything is online! I hope this system will work for him, because truthfully these last few years he’s hardly ever brought homework home anyway ( but not because it was online). He starts soccer this week.

Spencer has adjusted quickly to middle school. He’s so giant I’m sure the kids all think he’s an 8th grader instead of 6th. He is already right on top of his homework and being super responsible as usual. We did have a few days where he wore striped t-shirts with plaid shorts in competing colors, but I finally put my foot down and said “no more craziness! Start matching!”  He starts soccer this week too. He had a happy 11th birthday and happily told me it was the first time ever that he actually got something that was on his birthday list. Ha!

Thomas is an official 8th grader now. He is super happy that his math teacher never assigns homework, we are less thrilled about this than he is. (We may ask for a different teacher.) He is also taking three art classes, which he is happy about, but we think may be a bit excessive. Details that I’m sure we will get worked out this week. He starts soccer this week too, on a team with Aaron.

Aaron has adjusted to high school just fine. In fact, the very first day, his picture was taken and featured on the high school Facebook page. He’s taking one AP class and an accelerated honors math class, along with other honors classes, so I’m happy that for once he might have a little challenge at school. He is trying to figure out how to manage his time, balancing school, homework, his after school job, piano lessons/ practice and lots of soccer. He’s playing on a regular team with Thomas in addition to his competition team.

Rachel is now a senior. Gasp and sob with me on this, please. She feels pretty happy to rule the school. If only anyone believed she was a senior. She and Aaron have Commercial Art together. Some other students were asking what grade she was in and she said, “Senior” and they didn’t believe her, saying that she was probably just a freshman. She assured them she was a senior. Later on, Aaron overheard a few of those students saying that they knew she was lying. Ha! I told her someday she would appreciate her youthful looks.  Her big news of the week is that we finally got her a cell phone. (A smart phone even!) She’s completely thrilled about it, to say the least. You know us, never ones to bend to peer pressure and get our kids a phone in 7th grade. A senior in high school it is!

As for me, ugh, I’m sick of school already. Let’s go back to summer. Only two days into school, I was already done with it. With 6 kids bringing home paperwork that needs to be read/signed, four kids needing gobs of school supplies and more money for school, even though we’ve already paid $350 in fees, emails from three different schools, and emails from multiple teachers (30 teachers in all). Then you add in soccer for four boys and all the scheduling/driving/spectating that that involves. That is not even counting scouts/YWs/YMs. I had a few moments on Thursday where I was seriously considering running away to be a homeless family who lives on the beach. If the kids need schooling, they can go to the library and read books. Sounds like a great plan, no?!?!? Ok, fine, I’ll pull up my big girl pants and try and get a grip. But I’m keeping the beach plan ready, just in case. Feel free to join me.

The only good thing I can think of so far about school is that I get a LOT of noise free glorious hours each day all by my lonesome. The last two kids leave each day at 8:20 and the big kids come home around 2:40.  That’s SIX hours. A bunch of people have asked how it is so far, and I have to say it’s been pretty fun. I’m a homebody anyway and I have a list of about 200 things I want to do, so it’s working out fine. I haven’t started my list yet because I’m madly sewing two “Frozen” dolls trying to finish before Bekah’s birthday on Wednesday. But once the dolls are done, I’m going to have some fun!

This letter is getting long, but I have to report on Wicked yesterday. Back when Stick and Rachel went to NYC, they managed to snag last minute tickets to Wicked. They both really liked it, which is surprising for Stick especially, since musicals aren’t really his thang. So when he saw that it was going to be in SLC, he bought tickets for Rachel, Rebekah, me and his mom. A few years ago Rachel got a copy of the soundtrack and I’d listened to it a few times, but it didn’t really do much for me, not knowing the story. But seeing the show was a-mazing. I now know why everyone loves it so much, it was really incredible. Bekah was probably a little too young, she couldn’t see very well and wiggled the entire time, but she will tell you she loved it. We took Stick’s mom to City Creek  which she hadn’t seen and also rode Trax to and from SLC.  Such a great afternoon.