School Starts

The 2010-2011 School Year began yesterday. R is officially in the seventh grade, and M is in the fourth. For R, this represents the end of a four-plus year effort to roll him back a grade to his appropriate age*. R is starting the school year off his ADD meds. We'll see how he does. We all agreed that, if he can function as well or better without the meds, we won't take them any more. So far, no calamities...

The first week is always a bit crazy... the school bus schedule changed. The bus driver didn't adhere to the new schedule, AND didn't know where the designated bus stop was. Class assignments were a little different than expected. C was there yesterday to work out all those details.

To top that off, Ballet class started at OBT on the same day. We went from the Labor Day holiday to a full-blown School day on Tuesday, replete with class, ballet and fencing. It was like our summertime hammock got launched off the aircraft carrier using the catapult.

Our short-term exchange student also started school on Tuesday. After class, he went with class friends downtown to Pioneer Square. No problem except that he took the wrong bus home and, while he got to within a mile of the house, he couldn't find his way for the last bit of the trip -- I picked him up at 9pm from a transit center that was the end of the line for the bus route he took. We worked out the details for next time, though.

The dog, Teddy, decided to bolt out the front door as C was going to pick the kids up from school, too. So the dog's roaming the neighborhood, C *has* to leave without delay, and I'm 25 miles away at work. The good news is that Teddy isn't really a *roamer*, he's more of a full-acre-of-territory kind of dog. When he realized nobody was chasing after him, he went home and sat on the front porch, waiting. Dave stopped by and let him back into the house. Crisis averted.

Of course, this is the same day that the kitchen sink clogs up, allowing the dishwasher to overflow onto the kitchen floor...while nobody is home. Thankfully there wasn't that much water.

So, it was controlled chaos yesterday. Typical for a first day back to school. Especially one that catapulted like this year's first day did... we did okay.

======

* See, R's birthday lies right on the cutoff date between grades. R attended Kindergarten early at the Creative Children's Center way back when. When it came time to enter school, we had a choice of Kindergarten again, or First Grade. We chose First Grade because R needed the academic stimulation, and we took the risk that he'd be almost two years younger than the other kids in the class at neighborhood school. We'll, by mid-year in Second Grade (when he *should* have been a First Grader age-wise), R was doing 5th grade level work in some subjects. That's when we started learning about Access Academy.

Now that R is at Access, he's surrounded by like-talented kids, and in a program where he no longer needs to be moved ahead for academic stimulation. Access slowly rolled him back into the class with his appropriate age, and as of last spring, made his grade level official. R is now right where he belongs for his emotional abilities.