School Daze

We're now two weeks in, and while I wouldn't dare to call us a well-oiled machine just yet, we're at least heading in that direction.  The boys seem to love their respective teachers and classrooms, and we're adjusting to a quieter house and some new routines.  Adam is L-O-V-I-N-G kindergarten, and I am remembering how awesome it is to be greeted with an over-the-moon giddy grin at the bus stop each afternoon.  Ethan's smile has dimmed a bit over the last two years, sadly, so it's refreshing to see that kindergarten excitement again.

And my oh my how different my two boys are...  Over the past two years, Ethan has never, not once left anything at school.  Anything!  He missed the bus once, and you would have thought that the apocalypse was upon us.  With my dear Adam, it's always a surprise what we'll find in the backpack each afternoon.  He's already left his lunchbox at school, forgotten to bring his nap towel home, and lost his water bottle (temporarily, according to him - "I know I've seen it somewhere, Mom, I just don't remember where.").  If it weren't for the 198 reminders I give him every morning, Adam would most certainly get on the bus in pajamas with an empty belly and morning breath.  While this brand of unpreparedness is quite foreign to my personality, it is actually a nice change from my over-prepared, always-anxious first child.  It's kind of nice to hang out in our jammies for more than thirty seconds, and at least I don't have two kids asking me "how much time do I have?" on a repeat track from 7am until I finally, thankfully say "none, let's go!".  In all seriousness, I'm grateful I have a yin and a yang in our house, as I'm not sure I could handle two of either one of my guys.      

The other big difference between my boys is that Adam is a sharer!  From the moment he gets off the bus, I get a running commentary about life in Ms. Foss' classroom.  Some of it is hilarious, some a little disturbing, and most just confusing, but I love hearing about Adam's day.  I already feel like I know Adam's classmates better than I know anyone in Ethan's grade.  This has been a welcome juxtaposition to my "How was school?" "Good."  "Anything exciting happen?" "No." "Who did you play with?" "My friends." kid.

Tonight is Open House, and we're all excited to visit the boys' classrooms, talk to their teachers, and meet their friends.  In Adam's case, I know exactly who's been line leader, who's been in time out, and who has trouble with his "l"s.  Maybe we'll even locate that water bottle.

No new pictures of back to school, so I'll post some pictures of our extracurricular activities instead.  Fall means soccer for the boys...

Adam's first year of soccer and he loves it!  He's on the Triceratops team with other kindergartners and pre-kindergartners and most enjoys keeping score and learning who he's playing each week.  Two games in, and our little guy has already scored upwards of five goals!

Ethan's in his third year of soccer and is shining on his Lions team.  He's really connecting the skills and scored his first goal this week!

and running for Mommy.

The start of the Reach the Beach journey, at Cannon Mountain.

Beach reached!  One of my most favorite weekends of the year, with the best group of runners and teammates a girl could hope for. 

Our athletic endeavors have meant Daddy hasn't been playing as much tennis as he'd like, but he's been keeping busy assistant coaching and playing soccer with the boys in our backyard, and celebrating the return of football (with two avid fans).

Glad we have our calendar straight.

Let's go Pats!