School has been in session for a week and a half now, and it’s been an interesting transition. All four kids are in school full-time now, which is great — 8th, 6th, 4th, and kindergarten! Katie has been incredibly bored hanging around the house with me, and I will also admit that after four children my entertain-the-kid well has run a little dry.
I’ve put all my personal projects on hold for years; I’m more than ready to get back to my writing. Also, several months ago I began seriously practicing piano again — I spent most of the spring learning to play the Waldstein sonata (badly) and Chopin’s Fantasie-Impromptu (badly) among other assorted pieces, and after enough of this madness Brian printed up a list of piano teachers who specialize in advanced students. In a way, I’ll be going back to school, too — this Thursday I’m beginning private lessons with Jensina, a piano performance teacher at the community college.
We were able to have our schultuten this year — I’ve discovered that the Japanese bookstore in the International District is the best place to find cool school supplies for the schultute. I found a tiny pair of scissors that fold into a pen for Jeff, a metal holder that can clamp around a pencil stub for Katie, woodland creature sticky notes for Wim, and squishy pencil grips for Katie.
Each cone also held a new t-shirt, which the children wore on the first day of school. Naturally, you can’t see them in this picture:
On the first day of school, the 8th graders had a delayed start time, and so did all the kindergartners whose last names began with N-Z. On the same day, Brian had a flight to a conference in D.C. and so didn’t go into work. We all decided to go out to breakfast at Panera together. This was the general mood:
Katie was super wiggly and kept crawling under the table so she could do a puppet show with her hands. Jeff endured her antics. (Oh, she so needs all-day school.)
Here is a picture of Katie with her teacher, Ms. S. William had Ms. S for kindergarten as well, and she told us she was really hoping Katie would be matched into her class because she enjoys our family so much! Well, that’s flattering . . .
The weekend after the first week of school we were still able to squeeze in our annual Backyard Circus. Hooray!
Jeff was the ringmaster this year — and possibly the last year he’ll participate? Well, there was another 16 year old boy who allowed his younger brother to smash a pie in his face, so maybe Jeff will keep playing along.
By a strange coincidence, Eleanor and William also chose a pie-throwing act for their performance. It was actually a recreation of the “Four Hats Four Pies” routine that Aunt Kristen & Uncle Sven performed for one of Aunt Caitlin’s “no-talent shows” years ago.
Before she was covered in cream pie, Eleanor was also the “trainer” in a lion-taming routine with Katie. Katie LOVED being the lion, and drew lots of pictures of herself and Eleanor in their costumes.
It’s a great start to the new year, but I admit that I’m a little frustrated at the guilt I am feeling for spending so much of my time alone, working on personal projects, instead of volunteering at the school or church. It might be my imagination, but I feel like more people are nudging extra projects my way, under the assumption that I must be sitting bored at home with nothing to do. It’s annoying to turn them down, especially since I’m not very open to telling people what I do — I don’t feel that I should have to justify what I choose to do with my free time. I imagine many women feel the same way. But I feel confident that I’ll eventually find my rhythm and settle into this new life with fewer misgivings. Hooray for new beginnings!
Casa Camisas 