First day of school mommy blues

So ... yeah.  First day of school.

My kids (five of them, ages 11 down to 6) have been driving me mad all summer.  See they LOVE school.

This is a good thing, of course.  All five are - despite my dumb-arsed blunderings - very good students.  Boy and Bitty have never been off the honour roll, ever, and Boy, Bitty, and Bulk (say that three times fast) are all in AGP (advanced / gifted blah, blah, blah). THCTD is a consistant A/B student and tests well. She just skates riiiiight under the line to be AGP.

Oh and did I mention that one (Bitty) is autistic (PDD NOS) and three of them are Dyslexic (THCTD, Bitty, and Bulk).  Bulk suffers the most - sometimes flipping whole words mirror image when he writes them - AND he has attention issues.

Yet they are all happy, well adjusted, keen students.

Wow.  How did Bodog and I do this?!

Both of us were mediocre students at best.  I could do English and Science passably without studying at all (and so I did not) and struggled with maths so badly i had to be tutored at one point and take summer school at another.  I hated school.

So when my freshly minted middle schooler, Boy, acted nervous this morning, I was floored.  After all, I have taken him to class the first day of school for 6 years now and walked blithely away, leaving him - and me - relaxed and confident.  This morning he was clearly upset and acted as if he was on the verge of tears.

WTF?

Long story short, I told him I loved him and I left.  Like I always do.  I despise those moms who cling and cry and beg their kids to be brave - whether it's first day of school or getting a shot at the doctors office - thus upsetting their kids even more and perpetuating another generation of crybabies and drama queens.  You gotta learn to stand on your own two feet.  The folks at the middle school will take good care of my boy, I'm sure.  I want to mother him but like the professor in Pokemon always says "there's a time and a place for everything, but not now!"

Have a good day, guys.  Momma loves you!

L to R; Fiver (yes he asked me to put his hair up like that), Bulk, Boy, Bitty Girl, and The Human Crash Test Dummy,

Is that all you got, universe?!

*sigh*

So, apparently we were behind with the Gods of Happenstance on our Agony Dues and are now being properly caught up.

Got home Monday to discover the heater running, the house freezing, and a horrible chemical smell all through the house.

Took the furnace (it's an ancient gaspack) cover off, tested the fan (which tends to stick), rang the gas company to be sure we were green, checked all the electrical junctions.  Well, it's got gas, got spark, fan works, and it will fire up ... but then the flames go out and it just blows cold air (and gas?!) into the house.

So the heater is broken.  We've been getting by on a small electric space heater and the wood stove (which is in the kitchen - opposite end of the house from the bedrooms).*

Is there some universal rule that All Bad Crap Must Happen At Once? 

The medical bills just started coming in and the prescription costs have been eating us alive. Just the cost of the strips Bodog needs for his blood tester (he must check his blood 4 times a day) is astounding.

My truck is acting up, my tractor won't stay cranked, and the roof still leaks.

Hmm.  I guess it could be worse ... the chainsaw could be broken. ROTFL!

OH, on the subject of Bitty and school, I got some pics of her at the end of the day her first day:

She did quite well and was eager to go back.  She did, however, have a meltdown yesterday.  I'm trying not to stress about it, but it was so painfully clear that it wasn't a 'normal' kid reaction to the situation (some other classmates had been rewarded with Smarties for good behaviour and Bitty, not understanding why she was excluded, had had her typical reaction: cry, then shut down like a switched-off robot.)

I suppose that both she and I (and her teachers) will learn more every day how to cope.  I hope I won't fret myself into an ulcer before then. *rolls eyes*

*We do have a parrafin (kerosene) heater for emergencies but, 1) it triggers my asthma so badly that I'm miserable whenever it's on and 2) I will only have it in the mud room (which has a concrete floor and a high ceiling).  I absolutely refuse to run it anythere else in my 140 year old tinderbox of a house.  Wood frame, wood floors, ultra low ceilings?  Nope.

No 4K for the Bitty Girl

Well, we are pretty sure Bitty will NOT be going into 4K.

The 4K teacher who evaluated her, a lovely, bubbly, sweet woman SO unlike last year's teacher, told us she was 6th on the back-up, if-a-slot-comes-open list.  So the chances are slim.

In a way I'm pleased and in a way I'm disappointed.

During open house, when we asked what the chances were, the teacher (who does NOT choose - a computer ranks the kids based on the findings), told me that Bitty aced every question.  Every one.

She said; "She's really smart!"

I had to stop myself from doing what every proud momma will and blurting out: "well, duh!"

ROTFL.

I did tell her that Bitty could read at the same level as her sister (they can both read simple books like Sandra Boynton books, and the simpler Berenstain Bears ones).

So I'm glad she's doing well and I'm glad she'll get to be home with me another year, but I'm disappointed for her because she was SO excited to be going.

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Sort of on-topic, I have begun giving my three oldest fish oil for the omega-3s. I have read a LOT of stuff saying that kids don't get enough Omega 3s and that the human brain needs them to the point where it can help with things like ADD, Autism, and general memory and concentration.

Anyone out there have any feedback on using fish oil?  The whole family is taking them (except the two youngest), lol!