Friday, September 13, 2013

First Day of School!

Violating the Code of the Blogger, I'll post a mid-day Friday post about sending the kids off to school.  By now 90% of the country has had a week or two under their respective belts academically, and my kids are just boarding their buses.

The strike was over Wednesday night, and the kids were really excited to head back.  Emma in particular was afraid she'd have difficulty going to sleep, and packed and repacked her backpack in preparation for her bus ride 48 hours later.

We were a little out of practice this morning, I won't lie.  Leslie decided to "work from home".  Fine...when Leslie does it it's actually work from home...without the quotes.  She has never missed a morning getting the kids on the bus for first day and today wasn't going to be an exception.

She headed down to start breakfast as I finished getting dressed this morning and I texted down to her (to avoid yelling) asking whether she wanted me to get Lily up.  Emma had already gotten herself up and changed and they'd headed down to straighten her hair for the first day.  Leslie said yes, and so I crept into Lily's room to see if she'd woken yet.

She slumbered peacefully under mounded covers.  I stared at the dresser.  First day of school clothes.  Lots of cute clothes in Lily's drawer.  Hmm.  First day of school clothes cute?  Despite being perfectly capable of picking out coordinated and snappy apparel for my daughter I shook my head and stole quietly from the room on tip toes.

I walked downstairs where Leslie had finished straightening Emma's hair.  She glanced up questioningly?  "No Lily?"

"Rather than bring her down in the 'wrong' clothes, I figured you'd probably want to pick out her first day of school outfit."

If this sounds like a dodge, please know that it is really not a big deal for me to wake up Lily, put her on the potty, get her dressed and bring her downstairs, but on my best days sometimes I'll walk her downstairs and Leslie will glance at the ensemble and indicate that the weather forecast is 65 ...not 75 and therefore the threshold for capris has been breached and she must instead wear pants or something.  I don't know.  Some unwritten..."code of the mom" thing, imbedded in the hive mind of mothers everywhere where a temperature drift of as little as 5 degrees completely invalidates the attire of everyone in the house.  "Jim, you're going to be cold without a jacket..." is the bane of my existence.

So having been through this drill many many times, I knew that no matter what I brought Lily downstairs in...whether it be a gunny sack, The Emperor's New Clothes, or Dolce & Gabbana...it was going to change.

If I expected an eye roll or an argument, I didn't get one.  Leslie merely nodded at this as if to say, "Good point, you can't be trusted, I'll take over," and went upstairs to do just that as I finished the breakfasts.

It was time to take the morning picture.  Leslie offered to take the kids outside and get their pictures.  Emma offered, "Maybe daddy could do it so they'll be in focus!"

This is funny.  I'm not positive Leslie was entirely amused.  To be fair, a lot of Leslie's pictures are out of focus.  Or...to be more fair still to HER...they're focused extremely well, just on something other than what you think she should be focused on.  For example a picture of Lily in front of the house might show you spectacularly clear definition of our front door knob, but Lily's head might appear constructed of fuzzy cotton candy in the 'foreground'. 

Just as Leslie swapped out with me to get Lily dressed, I swapped out with her for the pictures.

I took Emma's picture.
This is Emma

I posted the pic and went in for Lily.  Lily didn't want to come outside.  At one point there was some arguing where Leslie was raising her voice to me, I was raising mine back, Emma then told us both to be nice, so I yelled at Emma to let mommy and I yell at each other and we all sort of retreated and regrouped and came back together and gave hugs and kisses and took Lily out onto the stoop for her pictures.
a smile and everything!


She didn't want to stand, but she smiled largely and genuinely and I caught it.  BOOM!  *drops iphone and walks off stage*

Both girls were happy to board their respective buses.  Lily's teacher texted Leslie to let us know she had a great day.  I just got off the phone with Emma who reported the same.


We're very happy they're back on track.

Mostly.  The bus picking Lily up is currently running 45 minutes late.

4 comments:

  1. Hooray! Beautiful pictures. So glad they're off to a good start.

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  2. Happy first day of school, kiddos! They look so happy. (Did Emma get glasses recently? Or are they just new glasses? They look so nice on her!)

    Also, a dad that can kid around about farting? Doing it right. Nice job, Jim.

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  3. So happy that your school resolved their strike and the girls are back to where they should be. And as always -- great photos!

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