Well, unlike last year school started one the original day it was supposed to. That was a plus. To make a long story short our school district said it was up to parents if their kids wore masks or not. I think that is a great idea because 1-they are my kids and I should be the one making decisions for them. 2- there is no mask mandate anywhere in our entire county right now. 3-Despite the news and politicians making it look like people are dropping dead in the streets and hospitals are overwhelmed with COVID patients, its not. One hospital (ironically Children’s Mercy) has made a public post TWICE saying they are not full and have very few COVID patients. However, the Johnson County Board of County Commissioners decided they know better (despite ZERO children’s deaths in our county and very low infection rates for children since all this started in March 2020) and made an order requiring all K-6th grade students to wear a mask. Our school board found a way around it by providing a mask exemption form for parents and/or doctors to sign but it has caused quite a tizzy. It is all kinds of crazy. The world and people are getting crazier everyday. But my kids are back in school, mine have the option to wear a mask ONLY if they want and unlike the other districts around us they did not have to define their sexuality and declare their pronouns the first day of school. 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
Emilee is in 3rd Grade. She has the same teacher Allison had in 3rd grade but her name is different because she got married. Mrs. Dechant. She is a great teacher and even though Emilee isn’t a huge fan of school I hope she will have a good year. I need to work on raising my expectations for her and helping her out of the “youngest child please do everything for me” funk.
Allison is in 6th grade and is ready to conquer it in a blaze of glory. There is a lot of cello players this year and they tried to persuade some kids to switch but she wouldn’t budge. She has been waiting a year to get to learn to play the cello and be an “Orch Dork”. She has a lot of classes with her friends and has organized and re-organized her locker multiple times a day since school started three days ago. Her friends and her make towel tents for each other to change in for PE and she can get seconds at lunch if she wants. Other than her mom making her ride the bus instead of personally delivering her to the front of the school each morning, she is loving life. If Allison is happy, the rest of us are even more happy. Doing the work won’t be a problem for her. Staying on top of things herself and being responsible will be her mountain to over come. She can do it!
Matthew started 9th grade this year, making it our first of many years to have a kid in each school. He got the classes he wanted but doesn’t have any close friends in any of them. He sees his besties in the hall and in a few weeks at lunch when they switch to the open hour lunch. He is a little bummed about that but his dad and I are encouraging him to meet new people. Good new people. So far he has a very good track record of picking friends that are good people and steering clear of the ones that aren’t as nice. He is starting to get some height going so that is exciting for him and he is hoping to bulk up a bit with weights as a class this year. His teenage laziness is effecting his motivation levels for school but he has always been good at staying up with assignments and managing it on his own. He told me he was looking forward to his retirement the other day. I rolled my eyes and told him to enjoy the phase he is at in life now. He takes drivers education soon and as soon as he is 15 he can drive by himself in a car to and from school if needed. He does have the slight problem of not having a car yet. They school had a gas leak 20 minutes after it started on the first day and everyone had to evacuate for an hour and a half but since then it has been pretty low key at the high school.
First day, catching the bus with neighbors Jack and Finn