Ps. 131:2
For some of you, it was "Back to School" week. Shiny binders, sharp pencils, crisp new shoes, and fresh haircuts... For us, it was more like "still at school." We've been here since June ordering books, planning lessons, preparing new paperwork, setting up new scholarships, reorganizing desks and shelves around the building, enrolling new students, setting up locker assignments. It's not really "back to school" if we never left. Nevertheless, the first week of school is what we've been preparing for all summer long, so there was a thrill in the air when we opened the doors to the maroon polo shirts and khaki pants parading off the school buses that first day.
I'm sure your workplace has a busy season so you'll understand what this week was like for us. Week One of a new school year is definitely the busy season for a school office. On Monday alone, I answered at least 30 or 40 phone calls. All week I was contacting parents to arrange meetings, getting quotes from textbook companies, creating spreadsheets for teachers, and sending home financial packets for newly-enrolled families. Forms and emails and phone calls and tuition payments and UPS deliveries all landed at my desk and never did I complete a single task before another needed my immediate attention. Our roster includes nearly 50 students who are brand-new to the school this year, which translates to about 100 parents that I need to get to know for my office responsibilities. And after four exhausting days, we had to get our game faces on for Back to School Night, then be ready again in the morning to host a faculty in-service day for the staff of three private schools. We capped off the week with a two-hour CPR training and made it home on Friday night by 4:30, hours earlier than any other night all week.
Thankfully, our boss is extraordinarily accommodating (Thanks, Phil) and has allowed us to bring Henry on those long days at school. All summer, in fact, Henry's been an unofficial school office mascot, playing with binder clips and business cards, and generally keeping himself occupied while Pete and I devoted hours to necessary school work. As the daughter of a teacher myself, I remember the way school becomes a second home for a staff kid, the way office supplies and discarded textbooks provide cheap entertainment, and the delicious sense of being at school on the summer day when they're waxing floors or replacing carpets. It makes a kid feel pretty special to know things about the school building that nobody else knows. I grew up on the inside, and it's a sweet sort of full-circle satisfaction to watch Henry growing up on the inside too.
A new beginning tends to have a frazzled start. It might be the first day of school, welcoming a new baby into the family, moving and starting life in a new home, or sending a child off to college for the first time. There's emotion mixed with a long to-do list and time seems barrel ahead faster than usual. Adrenaline kicks in and you don't care so much about things like home-cooked dinners and clean bathrooms while you're trying to survive the wild frenzy. But after the initial hubbub, life finds a rhythm again and you settle back into the patterns that keep things more or less orderly.
That's the feeling I have about the week that's about to begin: it's time to restore some normalcy. It's time for Henry to stop having to take his afternoon naps at school while I work. It's time to make real dinners again and catch up on housework. We're (mostly) past the busy season and ready to bring some breathing room back into our days. And we're all very ready to breathe again.
Grateful this week for:
my crock pot
Chick-fil-A
coffee
Henry's awesome babysitters
our baby pool
a nearby, trustworthy mechanic
cool mornings
smiles from new students
seeing the faces of students I've missed
someone else laminating 160 student ID cards for me
free episodes of Dr Quinn on amazon prime
this:
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