First week of school. Check!

Danny went to training in D.C. last week and left Gigi in Miami on his way. They returned on Sunday, and on Monday we kicked off our school year. Like, official school. As in wake-up alarms, morning assemblies, schedule charts, textbooks and due dates. We make a similar transition every September, but I don't remember there ever having been a more chaotic one than this one. This year, I had planned to begin full-on, standard academic classes with the two youngest kids despite certain behavioral dysfunctions in one child and attention difficulties and immaturity in the other. It was not entirely unexpected that beginning a spelling curriculum for Special Needs Child #1 would cause a nervous breakdown. Without the resources available for behavioral therapy, we have found guidance in a book called The Whole Brain Child. The meltdowns have since gotten shorter and a little less frequent. But our first day of school was the biggest trial of all- I think we had a record number of mini-meltdowns that day. They were resolved according to the book's instructions which meant I didn't have a child lock himself up for 3 hours to sulk. But, the new approach to handling the episodes is really exhausting for me! I am learning that empathy is not my strong point. Just kidding... I have always known that. I just actually have to care now. 

Tuesday was the first class with a new Spanish teacher, a young lady I met at church who had agreed to come to the house twice a week to converse with the children. Dominic was offended. "Yo sabe Español! No necesito clases!" he protested in Spanish so broken that it would have been funny was I not appalled at the disrespect. I left the kids with their teacher while I took advantage of the structured time to pick up the school room. I was putting away a jar of Q-tips that had mysteriously appeared in the family room when I tuned in to some unusual noises for a Spanish class-  Noemie was practicing her Hanon piano exercises in the middle of Giannina's attempt at an oral report on cats in Spanish. Gigi was giving said presentation over the sound of the piano, while jumping from one piece of furniture to the other (because the floor was lava.) Dominic meanwhile was numbing the chaos by banging his head into the nearby drum. While wearing headphones that weren't plugged into anything. The teacher had a blank expression as she tried to process the situation. I was mortified.

We also discovered on Tuesday that Gigi had broken a tooth. Her one week in Miami included a trip to the dentist, who discovered an abscess, and resulted in another trip to the dentist for an extraction and installation of a brace. So the discovery of the broken tooth less than a week later was exasperating. And to make matters worse, the new Bolivian dentist insisted that Gigi needed (another?!) cleaning, and that there was a cavity on the backside of the broken tooth as well, and that he would not repair the broken tooth without also filling in this elusive cavity which somehow evaded our American dentist. I came home from the dentist to see the boys had shattered a window in my brief absence. They had decided to play soccer in the foyer of the house instead of the empty carport. First week of school? More chaos, please. Let's buy a house!

One Tuesday evening we received a counter offer on a house we had been eyeing in North Carolina. Danny scrambled to put our financial records in order while I made shopping lists. On Wednesday, our third day of school, we attempted "First Day of School" pictures. That's just the way it is sometimes. I had the boys put on polo shirts because I want to remember my children as respectable young people, even though they had so far done everything that week so as to deny me that sentiment. The kids were all relatively compliant. Except for one.

My even-keeled, sweetest child was convinced that it was a crime against humanity to perpetuate this disingenuous, false impression... this LIE!... that he ever wears anything but ratty t-shirts to do his school work. By Wednesday, I was tired to the depths of my soul. Two days to go before the week was over. Gigi dropped her violin and knocked its bridge out of place. And I don't remember that crack in its body being there before...

Remarkably, the kids had all their school work in on time Friday. Noemie finished a newsletter she had been working on all month. And Dominic fell in love with his new cello. There are no cello teachers in Bolivia but that's a problem for another time because I'm at capacity this week for problem solving.

Here's to a waaaaay better second week.