1st day of school

On Thursday it was back to school for my now 3rd and 7th graders. I spent $300 on school supplies (that is not counting clothes), the "lists" were a mile long per child. C likes to ride the bus to school. M does not. I like to take my kids to school in the morning if I can because E loves to see the school buses and say "goodbye" to his sisters from the car, he waves and waves until they are in school. We've had a summer off and I didn't realize that this would be hard on me and on E. First stop was grade school. There are two wings in the grade school, one for the younger children and one for the older. C was worried about where she was going to go for her new class. I walked her in to make sure she would find it okay (and carry her 100lbs of supplies). I was not allowed down the hall. No parents are on the first day. I really didn't think I would get emotional. But she was headed down that "big kid" hall and yes I cried. I couldn't help it. I thought, but she is still so little, can't we just rewind time? We did not get M's schedule in the mail, I think the post office messed up our mail while we had it on hold during our vacation. So I had to go with her and walk from the office to the guidance counselor's office. We were in line behind highschooler's- they share the guidance counselor. The kids turned around and saw I was in line-stood out like a sore thumb with little E. I know that kids swear, but in my day we would never do that in front of an adult or a 2 year old child. They were a bunch of potty mouths. I thought my hair was going to wilt at the language. I looked at my rather innocent 12 year old, wow. It sucks that I have to leave her! I held back the tears until I was in the car. She got her schedule and unfazzed left to find her first class, must be used to the language. E wanted to stay at school with "sissy" he screamed for his sister the entire way out of the school. He is closest to M and adores her. It was a scene. M, thankfully, missed it-no we didn't make her die of embarrassment. Then E cried all the way home in the car. He wanted to go to school, he wanted to ride the bus, he wanted to "go to daddy's house" (i.e. the clinic). So we went to see dad. We spent all morning "helping" at the clinic. E loves to sit in the surgery holding dog cage, I promise its clean, and pretend he is a dog. He loves to watch surgery. He likes to take empty pill bottles and fill them with water. He likes to pretend to be Dr with the stuffed animals. He LOVES to see his dad being a Dr. But then we had to leave. I had stuff to do at home. He was very sad. Stuck with mom. I think he needs this baby.