Brickey

Hmmm... Where should I start? I'll start with this completely adorable photo of Elise. Doesn't she look old? My bro Dan and his wife Jessie sent this shirt to Elise for her birthday, so I took her picture intending to send a thank you note, but that never happened... I am a slacker. So thanks, Jessie! Sorry I didn't send a note.



Recently, Frank has been really concerned about the sleeping arrangements of various animals (of the stuffed variety). I think it's because we moved. Displacement can do weird things to a kid. We've spent a bit of time lately constructing homes for his "friends". We made a paper nest for his miniature stuffed Pteranodon named T Rex, complete with clock, mailbox, and stories (which Frank has faithfully read to T Rex for the past three nights). He also insisted that Puppy (full name Franken Puppy Dog) needed a bed of his own. He wanted it to rock. So we found a pattern at the library, and put together this bed for Puppy.

It is currently being painted green. Frank insisted Puppy needed a green bed.


Next: My thoughts on the first day of school.
Complete chaos. And I think I'm going to have a nervous breakdown, but it's not because I'm sad about seeing my little boy go to school.

This morning (Could it have really been only this morning? This is like an eternal day...) I had to extract Frank from his bed. It was painful, and the end result is that Frank now has an alarm clock. He'll just have to wake up to an annoying beeping sound, because I'm not going through that every morning. We all walked to the bus stop and patiently waited for the bus. Here is the only picture I took of Frank, and mostly I took it out of boredom, and general curiosity about the functioning of my cell phone camera feature.



When the bus turned the corner, he was ecstatic, jumping up and down, shouting "The bus! The bus!" It was a wonderful moment for him. Then he entered the bus. And of course, we are the last bus stop, and the bus is completely loaded to the gills with very scary looking fifth graders. And Frank proceeds to exit the bus. It was a wonderful moment for me. I'm pretty sure I was tearing up.

So we walked back home, got in the car and drove to school. Frank remained a bit unsure of the entire situation, shooting me furtive glances that communicated things like, "You're not really going to leave me here with these people, are you?" and "This is just a bad dream... I'm going to wake up any minute, right?" And being the loving mother that I am, I left without further ado.

The happy ending to the bus story: he did actually manage to ride the bus home. He had a lot of good things to say about his bus ride (including some great actions), so I'm hoping tomorrow morning will go better. Plus I guilted the bus driver into saving him a seat at the front.

Frank's comments about school: "Mom, there is a LOT of writing, and zero playing." I really hope this school thing works out for him.

I am about a centimeter away from quitting my job. I can write this on the internet because no one at my work knows how to use a computer (if you think I'm joking, you are totally wrong). I'm feeling totally overwhelmed about balancing it all, and I don't think I'm getting paid enough to make it worth my time...