kiwords

Today the boys had their first day back at Monday school. And while I usually don't start school until after Labor Day (as GOD INTENDED), this year we're starting school tomorrow. We have a family vacation coming up next month, and not even I can justify waiting to start school until September 8, then leaving town for two weeks on September 15.

You know what that means, right?

Ladies and Gentlemen, it's time for Kira's annual freak-out. Present paper bags and commence hyperventilating.

Oh wait, never mind. That's my job.

So today, while the boys were at school, that's what I did. I worked my way through the leftover mess from last year's schooling. I threw papers away and sharpened pencils and sorted through books and outlined the year's plan. And the whole time I tamped down the panic and muttered to myself, "I can't do this, it's too hard, I'm ruining my children, I can't do this, why isn't this pencil sharpener working, OH THAT'S RIGHT, BECAUSE I CAN'T DO THIS."

But of course, it wasn't just my voice here today, because I had the company of my girlchild. Sophia woke up this morning at THREE IN THE A.M., which YES,  I KNOW THAT'S REDUNDANT. I tend to lose control of the prose when I've been up since the morning at THREE IN THE A.M. She was perfectly happy when she woke up, just LOUD. Sweet Pea has discovered this...noise. I say it sounds like pencils being fed into a garbage disposal, eraser first. Max says it sounds like a cat being strangled. Regardless, it is loud. And it is Sophia's default noise when she is a) happy b) unhappy c) bored d) excited e) hungry or f) sleepy. So while I muttered and sorted, she shrieked and squirmed around on the floor at my feet, falling silent only when she'd wormed her way close enough to lick something that was GRAVELY NOT RECOMMENDED FOR BABY LICKING.

Then when I retrieved the boys from school (plus one extra boy), they were enthused about telling me about their days. The fact that their baby sister was screaming from her perch on my shoulder was NOT seen as a reason to WAIT on the telling. No, rather, it was a reason to INCREASE THE VOLUME of the telling.

And then, as a result of the fretting inside my head, and the shrieking and hollering from outside my head, the noggin couldn't take it anymore, and it exploded.

The end.