Back to School Night

Last night I ran around the elementary school trying to fit in visits to the 3 kids' classrooms during the 2 scheduled time slots... The back to school meetings are tough for just one parent! At least Kate was able to stay home and babysit. She got Luke and Izzy to bed before I even came home! Priceless...

I met the teachers again, and talked about some homework assignments, and a big field trip the twins have coming up. It was hectic, but it's done. Luke has the same teacher the twins had for first grade. They really loved her a lot, and I'm hoping Luke will too! He is quite shy in school. Once he comes out of his shell, though, look out! His personality just blows the shell to smithereens... And within an hour you are kind of wishing he'd crawl back in... Just for a few minutes, so you can have a little bit of quiet.

Luke is working hard on learning to read. The school really expects quite a lot out of them. I have to remind myself that Kate, who always scores exceedingly well on the standardized reading exams, didn't start reading independently until well into first grade. By second grade, she was reading at a sixth grade level. Luke just isn't quite ready yet. He enjoys listening to stories, though, as evidenced by the fact that he sneaks out of his room and sits on the stairs every night to listen as I read The Chronicles of Narnia series to the twins... Nonetheless, reading is a big deal here to the school system, so Luke, to his dismay, has to struggle through the *I can read* books as best as he can...

Now that back to school meetings are done, we can relax into our regular weekly routine, dominated by sports practices and scouting meetings. We will be busy, but at least it should be a fairly constant busy... Which means eventually we'll fall into some type of routine. We always do.

Mac is finishing his conference today, and will return to Houston for another 42 days or so before he returns back home. This has been a very long long time apart for us all! He does so much stuff around the house. Even if he's not home for dinner every night, it still is tremendously helpful to have an adult in the house. The kids miss him a lot. Even Kate! But she'll never admit it...

In a bit of good news, I took the kids to their dental appointments, and the dentist didn't think Steven or Izzy would need braces! This means they are free to play whatever instrument in band that they choose, except for Violin. Because I don't think I could handle that. Or drums... Are drums even an instrument?

So, what did they choose?

Steven chose... The Clarinet

And Isabel never wavered once-- she chose:

The Trombone!

Should be delightful.