Keeping the home flames burning

Our two oldest children have started school. Huzzah for modified year round schedules! (?)

Grapes is a 5th grader. (let your brain simmer in this one a minute--- I was TEACHING 5th grade when I had this monkey, 10+ years ago. Now she is that same shape of student at a new school and I am the Mom..... WEIRD!!)
She is in an 'advanced' class of sorts, because our district's budgets were cut and the Horizon's program eliminated. Their solution was to lump all the higher 5th graders into one class and let one teacher push them. (In all honesty, I was a little apprehensive about this 'solution', but in the first week those worries have been easily put to rest. This teacher appears to know exactly what she's doing and she is doing a great job. Call me a former 5th grader teacher impressed.) It doesn't hurt my girl's feeling that all her best buds are in this class with her, and they get to explore and express and learn together all day long.  It makes me miss teaching to think about it.

Socks is a 2nd grader
(with a cool watch and a BYU back pack!) AND proud of it! His buddies were all split into different classrooms (probably a smart move on the school's part. Some little boys I know tend to get a little rowdy and distracted when they are together.) But there are enough familiar faces that he is going to school and coming home with confidence. Speech therapy class will start in a week or two. It will only be 30 minutes a week, and the therapist sounded optimistic that it was a mild case of needing to reteach his mouth how to make some of the noises. No other concerns. 

The routine of bed times and getting up for the bus has not been as brutal as this mom anticipated, but we are still feeling the transition. (more grouching, less willing to help with chores... the usual rebellion as staged by my children) It will take a few days to shift our approach to life in general, but I am hoping that we can get good and comfortable before a baby monkey makes her entrance and effectively shatters our routines and basic existence. (8 1/2 weeks or so. But I'm not counting)

I really believe the monkey who is most keenly feeling the school shift is pencil. He and I don't know what to do with ourselves now that the big kids are gone all day again. 
Lots of tramp jumping and snack begging. (him, not me. tramp jumping sounds like a disaster for me!)

AND lots of really random conversations.  
I posted this on Facebook yesterday:

"Mom, what does a kilogram look like?"
"Um, I don't know."
"Oh! They look like red Cheerios's! Now you can tell me next time."
"Um, ok."

Then today he mumbled, "I don't know what mmusdgfbsd looks like." 
(You like my transcription of his unintelligible noises?)
I was all ready to answer 'red cheerios' when I asked him to repeat his question.
Then he said this:
"I don't know what heart disease looks like."

What do you say to that?

Or the time we were praying and he thanked the Lord for our DotComs. 
So unexpected. So Pencil!!
But don't worry... we are thankful. 

Preschool for him doesn't start until the first week in September.
 I think that means we still have a month left of this. Don't worry. I'll keep posting.