the FIRST day

Today was the first day of school for my girls and meet the teacher day for my new junior Higher.

All began well: outfits laid out, neatly packed lunches, breakfast at the counter, hair brushed, *extra time* in the morning.  We walked into school as a family, snapped pictures.  Huzzah.

Then the older one and I went to Target (take three) for dividers, a calculator and a locker shelf, and then wound through the crowded halls of his new school hunting for the classrooms on his schedule. .  He left impatient for tomorrow to come.

Victories!  But somewhere in those hours of full-immersion smiling, hello-ing, catching up and then more whirred wide-eyed hello-ing at the new school, my extrovert energy drained.
Drained.

By the time I picked my youngest up from the cute line of kindergarteners, all that was left of me was my body, with a face that couldn't move, a voice that didn't modulate, and eyes that communicated no expression.  Then that person stood at the park for half an hour trying to field conversation...

It's now 5:01PM.  I feel like I've carried a 50 pound backpack through the desert for hours.  My head hurts.  I want to lie on the ground.  A gallon of water would probably be beneficial, but instead I am drinking wine.

This sounds dramatic.  I know.

No one else in the house seems to feel this way.  The kindergartener who complained all the way to the park and then whine-cried through pick ups and drop offs  seemed to get it, but now that we’re home, she’s happily sitting at the table designing “wallpaper.”  The others are sprinting around a soccer  field  and doing pushups and sparring at the dojo.

And then there's me.

Could it be because I woke up at 3am on Sunday for a flight that I'd accidentally booked for 6:27PM rather than AM?  Maybe a little. Or the hormones of this particular week?  Perhaps.  Or the sheer overwhelm of calendaring?  Probably.  Or the comatose exhaustion that’s compensating for not *feeling* the September changes (a 5'3" man-boy)?  Likely.

So here I sit wondering why someone would schedule soccer practice the first day of school?
Why martial arts meets so late and how that kid will get home?  What anyone is going to eat for dinner?  how to drum up so. Many. Carpools?  And if Kindergarteners will be exhausted and crabby people all of September?

My glass is empty and it’s closer to 6. I am off to stare into the refrigerator, hoping to conjure dinner.  Cheers to day one!