And they're off!

8:29 am here in Dollymamaland. My school kids have been gone for an hour and a half. And me, well, I've been up for five-and-a-half HOURS people. Yes, I am not kidding you.

Squiggy Magoo was stuffy last night and sneezing and fussing, therefore I was also not getting any sleep. All of this after I dutifully went to bed at my responsible, school-is-in-session bedtime of 10pm, painfully tearing myself away from the third book in the Outlander series: Voyager.

So as I laid in bed hour after restless hour, trying to figure out a way to get everybody to sleep, and wondering "What next?!" about my book, I eventually gave up. I vacated the bed, giving The Firecrapper a fighting chance at getting some rest before he had to go to work this morning, and I relocated Squig and myself on the couch...and promptly went back to reading.

It's amazing how quickly 3.5 hours can pass when a good book is at hand!

So, I needn't have worried about missing my wake-up alarm and making the children late on their first day of school, plus the hubby got a doting wife by his side to make him coffee in the wee hours of the day, which he loved.

Unfortunately, all of the little ones woke up for the school departure, so I was playing short-order-cook to each of the 5, and then got to try to explain to a sad and teary Doodles why it was that Izzy Man gets to go on the bus today, but he doesn't. Last year Izzy and Doodles went to preschool together every day. This year Izzy is in Kindergarten, and will ride the early morning bus with his big sister. Doodles will still be in afternoon preschool, and that doesn't even start until the 15th.

So....I seriously thought about audioblogging for your audio torture session today. I had Izzy Man teetering on the front steps with his backpack weighed down with all the supplies he was supposed to bring (the bag probably weighed nearly a third of what he does). Squiggy was still sniffling and sneezing, and then when he did, would shriek "I needa tissue!!!!" Doodles was clinging to his backpack and trying to pretend like he was just going to jump on the bus along with the other kids, and was crying and screaming NOOOOOO when I said ever-so-nicely over and over again, "Honey, it is not your turn to go to school today. Your school starts in a couple of days."

Once the bus came and went, I got to herd 2 screaming, crying children into the house, plus one eager-beaver 7 year old homeschooler, looking all bright-eyed wondering what educational marvels his mother was about to dish up right there and then.

Ugh.

So we did some math. (identifying odds and evens: He got almost all of it wrong. I was too tired to pursue it any further than that.) He did some education computer stuff. And now I convinced him to go build with Legos, since it's also educational. He looked rather shocked at this news, and then like he felt rather lucky. Squiggy has FINALLY fallen asleep, and my eyes are about to fall closed. I think I will have to force myself to take a nap, even though Voyager calls.......