Pencils, books, & dirty looks

Holy cow, not a moment too soon....

School started today. My little Jensen is a second-grader! (gasp. gulp.)

About three weeks ago, it struck me like a bolt of lightning that school needed to start. Now. The kids were snarking at each other, and at me. Jensen was spending increasing amounts of time whining, "I'm bored..." and asking to watch tv. And I was losing my patience.

Let's be clear: I am not one of those parents who wishes that summer could go on forever and that they could always have all of their kids home together. Nope. It's nice for a while, but school serves a very important purpose: it prevents me from throttling my children. Oh, and the education part is kind of important, too.

So Jensen's at school right now. He was pumped this morning. We met his teacher yesterday (after my open-house-screw-up, everything was fine) and he packed his own lunch last night. His pink-eye is even almost gone, so he doesn't look like he got beat up anymore. He was ready to roll.

I walked him to the bus stop, a block up the street. It was pouring rain, and pretty chilly. (The first day of school without 100-degree heat? Unheard-of.) I kind of expected the bus to be late, first day and all, so we took our time getting out the door.

And we waited. For 25 minutes.

Finally I just scratched it and we went home and got in the car, both of us soaking wet. As we were driving away, the bus arrived... 28 minutes late. I was expecting 10 or 15 minutes... but half an hour?! I got Jensen to school two minutes after the bell-- not bad time at all. (Jeff called the school to let them know what was going on.) When I left school, his bus still hadn't arrived.

We had chronic bus problems for the few weeks we were here last year. Jensen was frequently 40 minutes late getting home. The district contracts out the busing, and the company that does it seems to be less-than-stellar. But... it's a new year. I'm just going to chalk this up to first-day glitches. I also am pretty skeptical it'll improve.

Anyway, school's on. Yea!!!

Oh, and does anyone have any suggestions for how to take a decent photo of a seven year old? You know, one where he's not blinking and not pretending to be wayyyy cool? Thanks.