Quiet Morning Ponderings - First Day of School

I am sitting here in the office this morning and the whole house is quiet. The a/c is not running, nobody is talking or moving around and the sound of my fingers on the keyboard seems abnormally loud amidst the silence. 

It is the first day of school today, the first day of days carefully planned out and following a set routine. The first day "back to normal". I like school, I have always liked school and now, as a mom, I am liking it on behalf of my kids. Despite being a big fan of school, the first day of the year still makes me nervous. New classroom, new teachers, new supplies, new friends and of course new knowledge and new experiences. All the newness is exciting and full of opportunities, like a new box of crayons! All bright and cheerful and ready to be transformed into something new. 

My daughter is starting first grade this year. The first year with grades. The first year with actual, numerical, on the top of the page, how-did-she-do, grades. 

I am terrified! 

I am not terrified about how she will do. She is a smart kid and I am sure she will do great. I am terrified how I will do. I am terrified about how I will handle receiving that first piece of paper with a number at the top. A number that I, when I was a kid, always wanted to be 100. 

Here is where my daughter and I differ.

Both of us catch on to things relatively quickly and we like to learn. However, she speeds through things and completes them in a hasty manner just to be done and if she does not agree with the way she is instructed to do something she will ignore that and do it her way. She also has a "that's good enough" attitude a lot of the time.

I, on the other hand, I like to be thorough and take my time. I like things to be orderly and 'perfect' when I turn them in. I would rewrite notes or assignments if they looked sloppy or inconsistent. I tend to follow the rules to a T and if I am in doubt about what I am asked to do then I will worry if I followed the rules exactly. 

Deep breaths. 

I am terrified about how I will handle someone else doing the learning, someone else doing the work and someone else earning the grades...whatever they might be. Despite this fear, I am determined to let her do her own learning and completion of work and earning of grades. This is her time, her time to learn and grow and experience. I have been there and done that already. My daughter is not me, she will never be me. She is her. She is the first grader. 

I just hope I remember this as I pull out that first piece of paper with a number at the top. I hope I handle myself, my reaction and the situation well, if the grade happens to not be quite as good on an assignment. Will I be able to take a step back and recognize the effort she made and the work she completed rather than only noticing what she did wrong or where she missed the points? 

I hope so......

Conversation...is it still an art?

I just got one of those envelopes in the mail that contains a bunch of ads and coupons for restaurants, gutter and roofing companies, carpet cleaners and mechanics etc. I usually flip through the stack quickly because you never know when there might be one in there that is for a company I actually use or intend to contact.

As I was flipping through the stack today there were mostly the same old ads that I have no interest in but then one caught my eye. It had the words “Create a conversation starter” on the front. It was an ad for customized smart phone cases. My immediate thought was “This is the way to start a conversation with someone???!!! Maybe I am really old fashioned but how about putting the phone down and then you would be able to start a conversation with the person the old-fashioned way. Maybe you could start by making eye contact with the person?  Maybe paying them a compliment, or say something about your surroundings or circumstances; or comment on the weather for that matter?

Birds and goats and llamas oh my!

Those who know me are well aware that animals are not among my favorite things. Especially the flying ones, or creepy crawling ones, or hairy ones, or big ones, or small ones…..in other words all of them! I am not proud to be afraid of all these supposedly “cute” beings, but I just do not find most of them adorable or appealing or likable at all. Now, however, since I am a somewhat responsible adult and I have kids of my own I am trying my best to not instill my fears in my kids. For example, I pretend to the best of my ability that the swarms of grackles what gather outside the grocery store do not bother me. Never mind the fact that I will rather park a mile away than park in the spot right next to the entrance if it means I will also be parked right next to a half-eaten burger being devoured by a gazillion of these oh-so-unattractive-flying-monsters-with-their-super-creepy-eyes! **mere thought makes me shutter**

Revelation Update

I just want to let you know that battle hair has officially been won! We have now had four days without hair-catastrophes. Four whole days! I will never go back to using any other type of hairbrush ever again. It feels great to check that battle off my list! .....Never mind the remaining gazillion other battles I still need to keep fighting….

New Year's Challenges

Ok, so I do not generally have New Year’s resolutions since I always feel like I will never keep them anyhow and life happens and time disappears from me and so forth. However, this year I have decided to come up with something similar. So, I have taken a closer look back at the twelve months that have just passed and I have come up with a list of challenges that I plan to face this year. 

These are not written in any particular order of importance, but here goes:

Challenge 1 - Organization, organization, organization!

I am definitely a more cluttered person and I tend to be surrounded by a lot of things, things I am working on, things I like to look at, things I never found a permanent home for, things I don’t know where came for, where are going or where belong. You get the picture; I am surrounded by things – my things, my husband’s things, our things, and our kids’ things. They all add up to one gigantic organizational challenge. This year though I am determined to take small steps towards getting systems in place that work for me and for us. They might not make much sense to anyone else, but they will hopefully make sense to us.