First week of school—check. Rebecca and Jonathan pranced off to the bus stop on Wednesday nervous but excited. Everything was fine until 4 minutes before we left when it was determined that no one had the proper footwear. Next they had to revisit the issue of new backpacks, which I failed to procure. They have the idea that second grade will come with so much homework that it can not possibly fit in their backpacks. Second grade apparently comes with something akin to the intro bio text Manuel used which outweighed them until they were almost 1 and which they used as a chair until they were three. In the end they got on the bus without looking back and as far as I can tell the first week went fine. Jonathan’s class is about 2/3 boys and Rebecca’s is about 2/3 girls. She told us she’s looking most forward to “talking to my friends ALL DAY.” The second grade a very complicated disciplinary system involving green, yellow and red lights. All they can tell me about it is that “it’s the discipoine system” Both kids were thrilled to find that the school library had the Hardy Boys and that they get to check out two at a time. Jonathan is mad that they don’t have Tom Swift and has already “requested that the librarian increase the collection.”

Eli’s start was not too smooth. He is in general the easy one, goes with the flow, other than potty training raises himself, wasn’t an undercooked puny raisin, no health and developmental issues and no ER for the first year of his life. (Yes I know he will need to discuss this at length with his therapist later but it’s good to give him material) After last weekend’s 1,2,3 strep punch it seemed we were in the clear until the little one woke up screaming on Tuesday night with hives and an allergic reaction to the amoxicillin. After a couple of hours of Benadryl, writhing in pain, calls from the nurse to ask us if he was still breathing ok, Manuel took him to the ER where they gave him steroids and apparently enjoyed playing with him. So Manuel and mini-well got home at 2 in the morning and we took him to the pediatrician in the morning where in addition to getting a new antibiotic I dropped him on his head. (yes really) In that exhausted parents of three way we dosed him up with the new medicine and dumped him at school. Despite the time consuming start up designed to prevent parents from accomplishing anything he proceeded to scream his head off at drop off every day. Eli also busted me on Thursday. We had a babysitter in the afternoon. I worked until the last 15 minutes when I got a phone call and decided to put away the three bins of kids laundry. I had heard Eli debating with Laruen about coming upstairs. He explained he needed me. She explained I was working. Then as I was chatting away I heard “thump thump thump” followed by a triumphant “I told you she wasn’t workin….”

I’m still messing with my new MAC. I seem to be down 400 tunes in Itunes. Not only am I for sure missing some particularly loud aggressive and dissonant piece of angry chic rock that I need to get through the day. But I’m probably lacking some eclectic music examples that I wont miss until 30 minutes before a lecture. I did move all of the documents successfully and as I expected the new machine solved all of my problems and the book ought to be done by next week. And in case there was any doubt that I’m on sabbatical I have lost the keys to my office so I literally can not go there. I had a mild panic attack when I was told that one of the trailers moved—was literally wheeled out of our parking lot. Thankfully I’m told it was the math trailer.