Xander was up all night puking. I so desperately wanted to sleep but the alarm clock went off. Is it really already 6:45. Time to get Kenzie ready for school. She is singing some opera song as she braids her hair. She makes me smile as I dig through the fridge to find something to make her for breakfast and to pack her lunch. She is so independent now and my heart skips a beat when she glances my way. She looks older and older every day. In the back of my mind I think "I should have Kenzie make her own lunch, yes, I should, she is responsible enough." I realize quickly however that she is such a free spirit and gets sidetracked easily so I would have to wake her up even earlier. That's ok. I can make her lunch.
I go into the girl's room and find Julia asleep in Kenzie's bed. I giggle. I am reminded of last night's fight between the two girls. Ugly exchanges were made between the two. Kenzie's feelings were of course hurt and she wanted to snuggle with me to fall asleep. I told her I couldn't because I had to put Xander and Sam to sleep. I then mentioned she could snuggle with her sister. Both their eyes got huge- What? Kenzie said, "She's the reason why I'm crying." I just said, "so what, the perfect time to forgive and love one another is right now." Julia then asked Kenzie if she wanted her to come sleep with her so she could have someone to snuggle with. It was the sweetest thing ever. They fell asleep together. Kenzie told me in her room that morning that it made her feel happy to have Julia sleep with her. She even said she isn't mad at her anymore. I told her to count her blessings because Julia doesn't like to share beds and likes her own space- Julia did that all for you you, Kenzie. Just then Julia is awoken and oh boy. She wakes up screaming and throwing her legs. Mad to be awake. Good Morning Julia!
I take Kenzie to school. She is for some reason having a hard time going poop. Her first day I rescued her from the embarrassment of staying in the bathroom longer than she's supposed to and/or telling her brand new teacher. Kenzie then tells me before I drop her off that she has to go poop but can't. I again take her to the bathroom. She figures things out. I give her big kisses. We always exchange "I love you's". She's my big little girl. I love her so much.
Time to get Julia ready for the day. She has afternoon kindergarten. The first week of school she seemed to love it. I was surprised. I was preparing for a catastrophe. Today however during her homework she had her first meltdown. Her teacher corrected the way she holds a pencil the day before and now she has lost all confidence in writing. The tears rolled down her cheeks as she mentions how she also didn't like the drawing of her self portrait she drew in class. I told her it was beautiful. I have no clue where this self doubt comes from. She then went off about how she hates kindergarten, hates the sand that gets in her shoes at recess, hates how she always has to do what the teacher wants, and hates how the teacher reads books she isn't interested in.
Then she said the heartbreaking words "I want to be with Kenzie, why can't I be with Kenzie at school?"
My heart starts to race because no mother wants their child to be sad and miserable at school. She begged me this morning if she could stay home. My mind was racing all over for the right thing to say. I kept saying all this nice mushy stuff about how wonderful she was and smart and talented and she just kept crying these big sincere alligator tears and pushing me away. She then grabbed her homework and was about to crinkle up her homework before I snatched it away from her and saved it. She was starting to get angry. Finally the mushy comfortable praises from me came to an end. It was entirely ineffective. "Stop it right now Julia!" I raised my voice. "You are choosing to act like this and I won't have it. You will go to the corner if you continue this." I then went on about happiness being a choice and sometimes we won't always like school but too bad, we go anyway and we make a choice to make the best of it, to not get offended, make a choice to like our drawings at school, make a choice to let things go. She started to listen I think and the tears stopped. Xander was trying to get my attention the whole time and he started to cry. I gave him a granola bar and took Julia into her room and rocked her in the big ugly chair that I keep telling myself I need to get rid of. I decided not to say anything more. I was so hoping it was just a moment of kindergarten freak out. We read a couple books together. She finally said, "I will go to school, but I don't like it!" ok then.
For hating so many things about Kindergarten, as her mother I was loving her strong opinions. She was so detailed. She knew exactly what she didn't like about school. It was sort of refreshing to hear. So thank you for at least expressing yourself well Julia. It could be so much harder if you were crying mixed with bad behavior and I didn't have a clue what was bothering you.
Julia is a frequent topic of my prayers.
I realized that I wanted to clean the kitchen before it was time to go to school but I had spent most of the morning talking, holding, hugging and reading to Julia. Her heart was finally calm before we left for school. I gave everyone apple slices and had them sit in the car 15 minutes before we left. I hurried and emptied the dishwasher and loaded it in silence while they were in the hot car. They survived.
How moms get anything done around the house is beyond me. I feel like I am writing this blog out of pure rebellion as I let the children watch TV just so I can sit at the computer and think straight without interruptions.
Last night it was a beautiful summer night and the girls being in school just seems so wrong. School is weird. I know it is necessary and I know they belong to an amazing school but it just kind of brings out these mood swings that just weren't present during summer. I know structure is good- but the sun is still up way past 8 and so I just let them play last night. They wanted to play Pirates in the backyard and Xander was more than excited to be with his sisters. Then we saw neighbors outside and we all talked and laughed until 9:30. The girls still needed showers. Xander likes to get in the showers with the girls and then a simple task turns into a big play session. The kids didn't crash until 10:00 pm. Ha! Kenzie was a zombie for the first 20 minutes of waking up. But she is generally a really happy person most of the time so she doesn't let things bother her like I do. She was up singing and playing with the cat at 6:45 AM. I always have to get on her case about staying focused and getting her morning duties done. She is in another world. After breakfast she got out a piece of paper and started drawing a game for Julia to play while she was at school. Kenzie's hair wasn't done, teeth not brushed, no shoes and we had to leave in 10 minutes. But she was off in her little land of drawing and making something nice for someone else.
On the way to school Julia asked if we could roll down the windows. Our AC in our van broke a month ago and it so happens to be the hottest summer on record or almost. In fact if today is over 95 degrees then we will tie the record in 1965. We roll down the windows and julia sticks her hands out the windows- she begs for me to turn up the radio. She loves music. She loves to be alone and doing her own thing. Kenzie was playing pick-a-boo with Sam and telling Xander a story. I decided to take in the moment and just be grateful for what I was surrounded by.
The air conditioning in the van broke, the AC at home broke, our computer laptop went dead all within a month. It's a joke. Trying to stay positive and look for the good...and this morning being with my kids was good and being with them made me realized I was one of the richest in the world. I am so so lucky.
Found this picture of the girls today and had to laugh. This explains their personalities so well.
This is a random post but I'm journaling- that is all that matters.
