Back to School

Monday was the kids first day back to school, and Jenn's first day with her new 7th graders (Jenn actually had to go back last Wednesday). It's hard for me to fathom the fact that Kai is starting 6th grade. It seems like it was yesterday that she was just learning to pull herself up using one of the milk crate book shelves we had back then.

We spent the past week or two making sure we had everything we needed. Having spent the last few years getting low quality bookbags from Wally World, we decided to go high end this year and got L. L. Bean bags. They can survive a nuclear blast, and they are much cooler, or so I'm told.

Kai was stressed because she just had her hair cut over the weekend and wasn't sure she liked it. She was also heading to Big Bad Middle School, on a new bus without any friends. The only thing she had to look forward to was taking the bus home with Sheridan and staying at Sheri's house until Mommy was able to pick her up. It didn't help our nerves either when the wrong bus picked her up. (Turns out her bus wasn't working and another bus had to do two routes, making it very crowded, which also bothered Kai). But, in the end, everything was OK. None of her teachers ate her alive, she was able to sit with her friends from last year during lunch, and she is excited to start back up with the band on Wednesday.


Nicky is a big second grader this year. His teacher is one of the most experienced in the district, which is just fine by us. While he had trouble and didn't really like school last year, he has become determined to enjoy school this year and do well. I think Mommy's deal that he can have a kitten next summer if he gets good grades might have something to do with it, though.

Jenn is excited by the new year. Her school made adequate yearly progress according to No Child Left Behind (translated: Her kids last year did OK on the state test), and from what she can tell, she has a good group of kids coming up this year. She also has a couple new tricks up her sleeve (like a scrapbook her seventh graders have to do, and another great parody play for drama). It's hard getting back into the swing of things, though, having had some down time over the summer.

Back to School time even affects me. For the next month I'll have to deal with customers who waited too long to start scheduling their students, customers who have their attendance setups configured incorrectly, and customers who need to print the weirdest data on their report cards. It usually takes two years for a customer on my company's school software to get comfortable enough without needing hand holding. And unfortunately, we have a lot of new customers starting the use the software "live" (for real, instead of just setting up for next year) for the first time this year. It's not going to be a picnic. But at least this way I have job security. :)