School's Out!

So the girls are finally out of school! What a landmark year this has been for our family. For the first time ever I had all of my girls at one school, and attending on the same schedule. I had a hard time at the beginning of the year. I fully realized that my "babies" were now kindergarteners. My heart broke a little as I schlepped them off that first day.

Those that know me well are aware that my identity has been altered since having kids. Like most moms, I live for my kids. That is why I am laughing as I prepare to type this next sentence (and no, I haven't opened any wine yet. But thanks for the thought!). I am so stinking relieved that school is over. Yes, yes, I am amazed that my kids are now 5th, 3rd and 1st graders, and of course, I mourn the passage of another year. But on a much larger scale I am just thanking my lucky stars that the year wrapped up before I lost another stitch of sanity.

As it turns out, the last few weeks of school are loaded with mommy booby traps. It starts slowly with a request for cupcakes here and another request to organize the class pizza party, followed by another request.... and it ends with a BANG! The combination of hosting end of year swim parties, attending school award/graduation ceremonies, chauffering to riding lessons/swim meets/baseball games, and knotting a couple hundred water balloons (just for kicks) nearly got the better of me. It certainly got the better of the index finger on my right hand. It is still healing after I peeled a couple layers of skin off during my water balloon knotting marathon.

I guess I was fooled into over estimating my capacity by that fact that I had never before had all four kids in school with different teachers and synchronized schedules. As I foolishly agreed to the the various requests I never saw the chaos that would ultimately result. There was no epic moment of convergence; no mental breakdown; no comic moment. I only hope that next time around I see the traps before I step into them!

This is Abby with her teacher. Notice the cute t-shirt she is wearing? That was my idea. I gave a bunch of kindergarteners Sharpies and fabric paint and helped them create a souvenir of their kindergarten experience by making a huge fingerprint "flower" on each other's shirts. Sounds innocent enough, but kids + paint (rarely) = a tidy outcome. Sigh.

Abby again. This time I was the lunch mom. The kids were ridiculously wound up that day.

Here is Emily graduating from kindergarten. Remember those cute shirts I helped Abby make? Well, if you have twins you have to do it twice. Emily's class shirts weren't dry enough to put them on yet. It was that close.