Week 17 Back to School!

YUCK! Winter Break is over and school is back in session. We start the day on time. And we spend breakfast listening to Mac whine about how he can’t cut his pancakes. He puts his whole body into the effort – of the whining and the attempt to make his light fluffy pancakes into bite size pieces. Serious whining and fussing. I am patient. I help him use his fork to make his pancake edible. Then comes more whining over I don’t remember what. Oh, right. The phantom stomach aches have returned. I know he is not tired. He just does not want to return to school.

It is now 7:45 p.m. We are 45 minutes late for bedtime. Both boys are at the dining table eating cereal. The same cereal they both professed to hate this morning. Mac has a page of 12 spelling words in front of him. He has to write them each three times. He wrote two words in 20 minutes before dinner and then burst into tears when I wrote, “Mrs. S, Mac can’t do this homework because he is moaning. Sorry! SuperMommy.” “I don’t want to get an F on my report card!” he wails.
He understands the ramifications of not doing his homework. Yet he still won’t do it.
Perhaps there need to be some other consequences, such as toys taken away or something. I will have to think about this one.
So now it is nearly 8pm and Sailor is telling us stories of Ratatouille, the movie we watched multiple times over break. My agitation is mounting. If Mac would put half the concentration into his homework that he is putting into scooping up the last grains of cereal from his bowl of milk we would be done already.
“Why does my knee itch?” he asks no one.
“Can you pour me some more cereal, please.”
He drops his pencil.
He picks it up with his toes.
“Can you pour me some more cereal, Mom?” I didn’t answer him the first time.
“Who are the muffins for?” he asks when I fetch a few from the kitchen for myself. “Me,” I answer.
“Darn,” he mumbles, “I need a muffin.”
While in the kitchen I see I never put away dinner. Sailor’s pasta still sits on the table. While he sits in the dining room eating his 2nd bowl of cereal.
Mac is on his 8th spelling word. “Mom, what kind of homework did you have? Did you have to do it on a typewriter?”
I tell him I didn’t have homework in 1st grade.
He is shocked. “That is so weird!”He gets up. Looks at his spelling list. Declares himself almost done.
“That music is driving me nuts,” he says about the radio playing in his brother’s room. “That’s what’s stopping me from doing my homework.” I am trying to be patient but it is hard, so hard. And when he moans it’s even worse.

It’s January 7th and outdoors it is nearly 60 degrees! Really. It’s as if spring has come early. The ground is wet. The snow piles are nearly gone. Everything is filthy. It’s windy. There is dog poop everywhere. We don’t need coats today.

I think it’s time to take down the Christmas decorations. We turn the holiday photo cards into Mac’s Alphabet Book, a project due for all 1st graders in 2 weeks. I can’t fathom why they are asked to do such a babyish project. This seems like something we should be putting together for our preschooler.

We are none of us happy about Mac’s return to school today. Sailor and I got a lot done to pass the time.

And it is worth noting that it took the full two weeks of winter break to get the stink out of Mac’s lunch box. I wanted to throw it away but worked hard to get it clean. And Mac spilled something in it at school today.

Ah I love school. Thrilled to bits to be back at it!