Anticipation…Is Keeping Me Waitin’*

We have been waiting and waiting and waiting for the first day of school and it’s finally arrived! This year, we started a week later than almost everyone else; I don’t know if it’s because of that or because one of my kids is starting high school and the other one thinks this year is going to be stressful, but the anticipation almost killed us.

Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration, but seriously, school couldn’t have taken any longer to get here!

Princess is starting High School today. I’m so excited for her! Yes, of course I’m a bit nostalgic for the kindergarten days, and I have a hard time believing that she’s actually in High School, but I really think it’s going to be great.

She, however, is not convinced. Despite going to two walk-throughs and two orientations, she believes that her high school has hidden corridors and hallways and stairwells that move, similar to Hogwarts.

I think that would be cool, and I’ve instructed her to call or text me as soon as that happens because I want to run over and see it. In reality, I happen to think that whoever built the school might have had a bit too much to drink, as the first floor of the A wing is actually the second floor of the rest of the school; if you go upstairs in the B wing you end up in the D wing; and apparently there is a hidden hallway in the B wing that looks like a supply closet, but isn’t (how much fun would it be to leave a few brooms outside the doors, just to mess with people?).

Now, I get that she’s nervous, and I was really lenient in the days leading up to today. Once we got past the discussion about how, even though everyone says there is no dress code, there actually is one and you don’t want to be THAT girl the first day of school, and once my husband had the discussion about being in school with 17 and 18-year-old boys/men, and how, therefore, you don’t want to be THAT girl either, I pretty much let her do whatever she needed to be less nervous.

Unfortunately, that included my getting up with her at the crack of dawn. See, my kids have always had an alarm clock and they have always been responsible for getting up on time. With two girls, I see no reason why I should have to get up with them just so they can have an extra 45 minutes to do their hair and makeup. I get up early enough to make their breakfast and their lunch and see them off. Anything earlier than that is up to them. But I offered a “one time only, first day of school special” and agreed to get up with Princess at 5:45 a.m.

Uch, even writing those numbers makes me yawn. Do you know that it’s still DARK then? 5:45 was actually a compromise. Her alarm went off at 5:30 and she wanted me up then with her, but I told her since she’s just going to lay in bed for ten minutes and then refuse to talk to me because she’s not a morning person, there’s no reason why I should have to suffer for an extra 15 minutes—please, I have things I’ve been dying to do today and I don’t want to be too tired to get them done!

So we got up, I said a lot of bad words related to it being so early and so dark, and we made it through the morning. I even convinced her to eat breakfast and drink some orange juice. I’m not sure if she was tired (due to the ridiculously early time that it was—have I complained about that enough yet?) or just resigned to the tradition, but we even got pictures of her! Of course, she looks like she’s about to be led to the guillotine…

Once she got out the door, it was time to kick Banana Girl out of bed—I said they have alarm clocks; I didn’t say they respond to them, and since I was already up…I walked into her room and she informed me that she has decided to be a bear and is going to hibernate. She pulled up the covers and turned over.

Well, I’ll give her points for creativity. Additional points for the growl (yes, it was actually a growl) she gave me when I told her she had to get up anyway.

Based on all of her nerves, I’m surprised she didn’t choose a bird, since she’s convinced she needs wings in order to get to her classes on time. And having seen her schedule and her classroom locations on the map, I can’t exactly say I disagree with her.

But, she ate, she got dressed and ready to go. And she, too, let us take her picture—the threat of doing it publically at the bus stop rather than in the privacy of our own home is an amazing incentive—and went to the bus.

They’ll have lots of adjustments to make in the coming days and weeks, as will I. In the meantime, however, I’m going to enjoy the fact the for the first time in more than six weeks, my house is EMPTY!

*Lyrics from Carly Simon’s Anticipation