Back to Life, Back to Reality...and Back to School

Going on vacation the last week of summer break really messes with your head.  I knew that was a risk, but we did it last year and survived, so how bad could it be?  I think we had a little more time before the end of vacation and the start of school, though.  This year we had one full day and one work day, which was not really enough.  I sort of panicked over the course of those two days that there were big things I was forgetting, even if I knew that we took care of the school supplies before we left.  I did realize we were a little short on lunch snacks, but I managed.  Still, mentally it was a huge shift to go from dreamy vacation mode (and the resulting exhaustion) to work and school in a matter of days.  

The first day was predictably hectic, made worse by me going into the office as well.  I felt like I needed a nap by about 9:30, mostly due to Jacob stress.  Despite going to a school that's half the distance away of his old one, he probably only picked up about five minutes because his new school starts five minutes earlier.  He's annoyed with his uniform shirts because he thinks the sleeves are too long.  I felt like he would have outgrown the extra small pretty quickly so I encouraged him to go up a size, but he made a big deal about it that first day.  He was also slow as usual and ended up a couple minutes late.  Ugh.  Not ideal for the first day at a new school.  But at least he gets to wear polos all year and can wear whatever shoes he wants.  

Here are the official photos:

The first days were pretty mediocre all around.  Jacob had homework the first day and was not jazzed about the cell phone policy, but it sounds like most schools have the same strictness these days (although he heard through the grapevine that his old school gave up enforcing theirs by the end of the first week).  Carter doesn't have any good friends in his class and the jury's still out on his teacher.  Both seemed to think the subsequent two days were a bit better, but the summer laziness is biting us in the butt a bit because homework has been a struggle.  I think we're going to have a lot of work to do with both kids to get them organized and in good homework habits.  Jacob needs to adjust to daily homework in all classes instead of just half of them.  Carter apparently has homework packets, which were a godsend with Jacob but complicate things with Carter because he was really good about doing daily homework and might suffer from the inexactness of a packet and how much he needs to do each day.  He's coming directly home every day this year instead of going to the after school program, so that's a change as well.  Hopefully both kids can motivate themselves to do their work, even when we're not home to direct them.  

As for me, my in-office status has changed three times in the past two weeks.  While we were in Florida, the University's COVID status changed to "yellow", which meant in the office any two days per week.  That's what we were doing all summer anyway, but we were set to go back to three set days per week after Labor Day and suddenly that was back off.  My first day back on Tuesday it went back to green, which meant the set three days per week was back on, but given the holiday week we were holding off starting until Monday.  Then on Friday it went back to yellow.  I only made it in one day out of the four last week anyway because I got sniffly Thursday night and felt pretty crappy by bedtime, and it was no better in the morning so I stayed home.  It never really got significantly worse and is mostly better now, just a little lingering congestion.  My initial COVID test was negative.  The status change doesn't matter for me for the coming week because I have to go in Monday to print some cards for events I'm working in-person on Tuesday and Wednesday, so I'll do three days no matter what.  Last year we were supposed to go back after Labor Day, too, and when it didn't work out because COVID spiked, I was frustrated because I just wanted to confront our new normal and get it over with.  This year we're basically continuing half-normal and I'm relieved we're only taking on school as a new addition right now.  I don't mind in-person but it is a ton easier to be home...and I love having my quiet house back!

Wednesday night after the first day, Jacob had training and Carter and I needed to get to the library to return a book and finally check out some new ones, so I figured we'd find a library that had more of the books we wanted (two of which were next in a series and our library didn't have them).  We went out to the Chili library a couple towns over.  I knew there was a small playground near the entrance so we stopped there as the sun was setting.   

It wasn't a big one, but we still had some fun.  Carter also enjoyed teaching a little guy (no older than two) his tips for climbing the slide.  He's such a goof.  

He somehow managed to climb all the way up the swing pole.  I don't know how he does it!

I realized around midweek that I never checked my garden for cucumbers when we got home.  I checked the garden in general but forgot to search for hidden cukes.  When I did, I found four fat ones, but none more interesting than these two:

One is the size of my forearm, the other got caught in the garden fencing.

Adventures in late summer vacationing, I guess, when the garden is already a bit out of hand and absence only makes it worse.  I have an overload of tomatoes still waiting to be picked, too.  My plethora of zinnias are alive but a losing their luster a bit, and my porch dahlia finally has a couple buds despite being in the pot that fell over and didn't get rain while we were gone.  Oh, and my two late bloomer hydrangeas are fully flowered now.  So strange.   

Craig left for two days in Toronto on Friday and got back late last night.  I was mostly too tired from my cold and getting up early to get Jacob to practice to worry about him being gone.  Two days is easy, anyway.  I guess we should get used to it since lacrosse season is just around the corner, although one of his first working weekends we'll be spending on the road for basketball without him.  On Saturday I did have to do some grocery shopping (x3) and get a new pair of (cheap) sunglasses since mine got really scratched in my bag on the trip, so that kept me awake in the afternoon after napping most of the morning.  Sunday was pretty low-key, too--church/practice, a haircut for Carter, lawn mowing for Craig, homework for Jacob, and dealing with some house clutter for me.  That first week of school pile of paperwork sucks!

It's a bit of a bummer to be back to work without a vacation to look forward to, even though we do have a lot of weekend trips coming up for basketball.  I'm sure it will make fall go very quickly, which isn't necessarily a good thing since fall is the only thing separating us from winter.  Hopefully we'll get some decent fall foliage views on our trips since our hiking time may be limited.  It's been odd since we got back from Florida--the weather has been mostly cool and I'm half tempted to pull out my fall stuff way earlier than usual.  It's like I got my fill of summer down in Florida and the weather here has my brain fooled.  I'm still in denial that it's already September.  Having my birthday be a bit of a non-event in the middle of our trip probably didn't help with those summer-ending mental cues.  I'm a little sad that summer is ending--school or otherwise--but I guess anything would be a bit of a letdown after the trip we had, so summer ending is only a minor bummer in comparison.  I feel very lucky that we were able to do the trip we did, with very few issues, so I guess my gratefulness probably softens the blow, too.  

Full reality hits this week, though--a full five days of work and school.  Let's see how we fare by next weekend...