I mean, A’s school is like across a courtyard from C’s school, but technically we will have one kid each in elementary, middle, and high school next year. On to 3rd, 7th, and 9th!
(side note: it is sooo pleasing to me that the kids are always either all even or odd years, ha).
This kind of blows my mind, as does the fact that high school is only 4 years long and then (in most cases) that will be the end of having all 3 kids at home with us every day. I know this and I accept this, and of course it’s normal, and I also find it devastating. When I was younger (ie: when I had toddlers) I honestly rolled my eyes hearing things like this (maybe at that time it felt like they’d be toddlers forever? And I did not WANT to live with toddlers forever?) but, well. Here we are.
I feel like noting that my kids had really good school years this year. Of course, if they had BAD school years, I wouldn’t write about that, but I also can assure you I wouldn’t say the year was good if it actually wasn’t.
But seriously, it was and I am grateful. Socially, academically, activities, all of it. There were little stressors, but no major drama (and we absolutely HAVE endured all kinds of school and school-adjacent challenges in other years). Our biggest challenge this academic year was . . . well, broken bones which seemed to just keep coming. But no one has a cast at this particular moment.
Truly, I’m proud of all 3 kids for working hard. We had lots of fantastic teachers in the mix too (including some I have known now for years). And I feel lucky we’ve been able to find school environments that have worked out really well so far for each kid.
SUMMER SPREADSHEET
I had mentioned potentially sharing our summer spreadsheet on the podcast and then someone asked about it! Here is a version from last year (with our own details removed):
This was done in Apple Notes, so super easy to recreate and access on the go.
(Why yes, our summer is 9 weeks – I don’t know why that keeps suprirrisng me but it does seem really short.)
So what goes in those boxes?
Travel weeks are easy – I just put the destination.
Then, for any weeks home, I put the general idea of what each kid is doing (in our case, either various camp, math, gym practice, etc). You can include potentially any drop off/pickup info, and I add “PAID” when I see I’ve been charged. You could also add checkboxes for any forms etc.
I REALLY find it helpful to look at the summer through this lens and wouldn’t attempt to plan the summer without some kind of sheet! I should really rename it just SUMMER SPREADSHEET because A isn’t going to camp but still has entries.
8th Grade Graduation is tonight (!) – we will see if A lets me share any pictures. I hope so, I really like her dress!
It is nice to be ending the year (generally) on a positive note.
2 Comments
I am so glad all kids had a good year! And helpful to hear that you have also had prior years that were not so good. We are coming off a really bad year (4th) and making some changes, but I think some part of me still worries it’s all bad from here. Ups and downs seem more hopeful.
I have yet to feel sad about the passage of time so far as each stage has been better than the one we left. But we had very similar thoughts about babies/toddlers, so I will be prepared to feel more sad as we enter the high school years – which is still far off for us with kids in PK and 2nd grade! 3 schools sounds complicated but it’s good that 2 are close and I assume those 2 have the same school calendar? The boys will be in the same school for the next 3 years and then not again until they are in 9th/12th grade! But the elementary and middle school are both very close to our house and hopefully Paul will be taking the bus to middle school so we shouldn’t have too many years of complicated logistics!
Enjoy 8th grade graduation! We have our younger’s PK graduation on Friday which should be cute. He’s been telling us about how they’ve been practicing their songs but cannot remember what those songs are. Lol.