adios, summer

Well, the Best Summer Ever is over. Until next year, anyway. I dropped Toby and Brynn off at their school today and later I have to go register R2 for public school again, assuming I can find his immunization records. Seriously. Does anybody really expect me to keep shot records? He's 14. What is this, the Middle Ages? Do I carry around a rucksack with scrolls in it? Maybe I could just get his records tattooed on his arm, so I could just look totally nuts instead of slightly negligent. Nuts, but with shot records, booyah. (This might mark the first and last time I have ever used booyah on my blog)

(If this blog was a car, I would be all over the map. It would have to be some kind of ATV and I would just randomly drive it off cliffs and then try to reverse to my original point. No regrets, though, except maybe that booyah.)

So, Best Summer Ever. I think it went well. There were days and weeks when we did nothing but video games and movies, and by we, I mean them, but I think most of our weeks had genuinely interesting and fun outings. Ultimately, I feel like I soaked up these months and tried to make memories with my kids and it was worth all the nervous sweating and hair loss and vomiting. I'll probably be fine. Eventually. In the sweet by and by. 

So these 2 started 1st and 2nd grade today, in theory. In reality their school doesn't stick to a strict grade level system, which I love, but it makes them look confused when the cashier asks them what grade they're in and then my false guilt syndrome kicks in and I want to explain that they do go to school and we don't spend our days cooking meth in our basement, but something tells me that explaining that would do more harm than good and then I'd have to explain meth production to Toby, who would memorize it and then bring it up in random conversations with strangers and librarians, and there is just no way it would end well. "Look, mom!" he'd say loudly in the swanky Target, "Sudafed! Is that the kind used for methamphetamine production?"

You might remember that they just started school for the first time in January, when R2 was sick and I had to stop homeschooling, and I had emotional breakdowns and angst and guilt and everything, and I cried all the way home from their first drop-off. I was not emotional this year. In fact, I didn't walk in with them or anything. "Have a good life!" I might have yelled, as I peeled rubber out of the parking lot. I have a general sort-of ache about them growing away from me, but the ache is less as I celebrate every new phase. Well. Almost every phase. I'm not crazy about the new experimentation with sass-talk. It's just a brief experimentation, mind you, because I respond to sass-talk with Texas Justice, and Texas Justice has a way of curing sass, or at least pointing it in the right direction. 

So. That's a wrap. Time for the Best School Year Ever.

Bonus Momfinger Cameo!