Today began a new chapter in my life. You would think that in all the craziness and change that has been our lives over the past five months that today would be no big deal...but it was. Today was the first official day as my role as a stay-at-home-mom and my role as a mother to TWO school-aged children. Not only do I have to learn to say goodbye to my husband for the day (something I have rarely had to do in the last 8.5 years) but now I have to say goodbye to Alaina for the whole day and Caleb for half a day. Craziness I tell you! After getting up at five, sneaking in a cup of coffee, getting kids up, dressed, fed, cleaned, and ready for school I walked the kids in (my thoughts on walking four kids into school is worthy of its own post). When I came home an hour later it was just me, Levi, and Katie (and our house helper on loan -- Ibu Lala). A bit later Katelynn was down for a nap and Levi fell asleep on the couch (he's been sick). Ibu was cleaning my house and what, what is that noise?? I don't recognize it at ALL...I think it is called....SILENCE. Oh my. Right then, in that moment, with no one calling my name and nothing that I HAD to do in that VERY minute, I realized my life has changed. I'll never have four preschool age kids again. I'm trading in my diapers (well, some of them anyway) for book bags and letters from the teacher. I have less sippy cups to fill and more library books to keep track of. It's amazing what can happen in a day.
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The first day went well -- Alaina (who exclaimed yesterday that she was "so excited I could eat the HOUSE!) loved every minute and already has outfits planned for the rest of the week. Caleb, when asked how his first day was, only reported, "I went pee and washed my hands!" I later confirmed with his teacher that he did in fact do more in his three hours than just go pee. Glad to know he enjoyed it though ;)
Jason seemed to have a good first day too -- busy, but good. It will be a bumpy couple of weeks as he learns to juggle PE teaching with his athletic director duties, but things will fall into place. We are SO THANKFUL that the school is very organized and expects its staff to be. Makes things so much easier!
And my "first day" was good too -- extra snuggles with Levi, ten
minutes of quiet, and lots of exercise as I walked to and from the
school three times.
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Some pictures from Independence Day on Sunday. Our neighborhood had a
little celebration for Indonesia's Independence Day and I walked down
to witness a traditional Indonesian event -- the climbing of the the
grease pole. The men are broken into teams and attempt to scale a
bamboo covered in grease. At the top hangs gifts and prizes for the
lucky men who make it. The whole event took about two hours and was
quite entertaining to watch.
The men work hard to scale up the pole, climbing on top of each other, each man taking off a little more of the grease to make it easier for the next person.
A lot of stopping and restarting happens as they slip down the pole. Each team has a time limit and then the next team gets to go.
They just keep trying and get closer and closer...
and then FINALLY someone makes it to the top and grabs the prizes (or envelopes that decide what prize they get).
And then the rest of the men make it up and try to grab some of the loot
And then they claim their prizes -- this time it was small stuff like T-shirts and bags of rice. I am told that often times it is big stuff like TV's and cash. The team that won this event was our neighborhood Satpams (security guards). Fun to see them out of uniform. Way to go, guys!
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And a few first day of school pictures. We were running late and so we took these in about 30 seconds.
Caleb, being true to himself, was boycotting photos.
But once he got there he was quite happy
Alrighty -- off to bed. 5:00 am comes quickly...and yes, I do have to get up then. In order to get everyone out the door (dressed and fed) by 6:55, it is really the only way. I go crazy if I don't have at least 20-30 minutes of nothing before I start a crazy day. 5:00 am is my only chance.
Wow - great post - great to see these pictures - I can't belive you have two in school - how bittersweet right?!
Posted by: MandaKay | August 20, 2008 at 10:17 AM
How sweet the first day of school pictures! Glad to hear you are all settling in!
Posted by: Margie S. | August 20, 2008 at 07:26 PM