Tuesday, August 22 2023

Hey Reader!

And good morning. I just shut the studio door behind me, and though I can still hear Miles whining in the kitchen, I think I dampened the sound enough to help me get some momentum going for the work day.

Shocker, but Miles isn't really enjoying the new school day routine. Over the summer, he's grown accustomed to waking up when he wants to and wandering into Rodney's room for morning playtime. You should have seen the look of utter betrayal in his eyes this morning when I sent him back to his room while his brother took a seat at the breakfast table. He screamed. He cried. He bleated like a lost sheep separated from the safety of his herd.

Miles has been the most challenging part of the back to school routine. And now that Marissa has started a part time gig at Rodney's school as lunch supervisor, Miles and I get a lot of face time.

Speaking of Marissa's new gig, we both thought it would be funny to take a "first day" photo of her holding the letterboard on the front step, just like we did with Rodney. But we didn't have enough time to rearrange all the letters, so I scribbled a caption on a sheet of paper instead. I think it still got the point across.

Marissa shows up at the school. She passes out milk and lunches. She lines kids up for recess. She also just learned that she's responsible for keeping an eye on kids with sensitive food allergies.

"I wish there was a better system for allergies," said Marissa. "Like instead of a list, why can't kids have like a peanut sticker on their desk."

"Because then a kid with a peanut allergy would have to stare at a picture of a peanut on their desk all day," I laughed.

Rodney has a good first day of school. Of course I didn't get to hear a lot of details. Kids are the worst at summarizing things.

Here's what I did learn: his teacher doesn't like the color blue, but she likes purple. She also rode in a hot air balloon once. I'm not even just giving you the highlights, those are literally the only two reflections Rodney had when he leapt off the bus in the afternoon. Without any concrete facts, I just have to go off of his buzzing energy and toothy grin.

Here's the difficult thing about three year olds - they can spend 99 percent of the day abusing your patience, and then they do something cute for twenty seconds and win you back. I let Miles out of his room to wait for Rodney's bus to come home, and we shared a nice moment making silly faces at the camera.

No work meetings on the calendar today, but there's still plenty of stuff to catch up on. Let's have a day, reader. See you next time.