Of course, I speak too soon...

Saturday. Kid#1 has a birthday party to attend on Sunday. Kid#2 is jealous, upset, envious, sad - he wants to do something special too. "No problem!" I grandly proclaim. "When your brother is at the birthday party, you and I can do something else - you pick, we'll do it." After I dismiss plans to go to the Eiffel Tower, Egypt and Toronto, we settle on pizza for lunch, McDonald's play place and a run in the park. We're all set.

Sunday. Kid#1 gets set for his birthday party. Kid#2: "My tummy hurts." Me: "Well if your tummy hurts so much, maybe you should go and lie down."  Kid#2: "Ok". Clearly he's quite sick.

We don't go for our pizza lunch. We don't go to McDonald's. I sit on the side of his bed the entire afternoon while he lies watching kid movies. He occasionally complains about his tummy. He says he feels like throwing up, but can't. He doesn't eat all day. He doesn't have a fever, but clearly he's not well. I debate our options.

Sunday afternoon. I go get Kid#1 from the birthday party, and we go grocery shopping. When we get home, Hubby is on his hands and knees scrubbing the carpet. Apparently, when Kid#2's movie was over, he came downstairs and promptly threw up on the carpet. My unasked question to Hubby: what are you doing letting the sick kid wander around the house without a barf bucket nearby? What I say instead: "Thanks."

Kid#2 feels much better, but I give him Gravol for the night anyhow. In the morning, his appetite seems to be ok. He bounces off walls all day. He's seemingly healthy. He's resilient. I'm still stunned that we got hit with a back-to-school virus in the first week of back-to-school.

Hopefully that's it for the year - he should have built his resilience and immunity now - right?

We survived the first week of school!

Highlights from the first week of school - where Mom was going crazy with her new job, Dad was going crazy getting ready for his students (and a whole bunch of other things), and the Kids were freaking out because they *finally* realized that they had, in fact, missed a year of French. I had been telling them this all last year, but they didn't really take heed. Until the day before school when they decided to get all freaky and nervous and worried about it. But I digress...

New lunchboxes - for Kids and for Mom - From LL Bean. Exorbitant taxes and shipping and duties, so I also decided to order a couple of pairs of pants too.

No school supplies - schools here figure that stuff out on their own.

No back-to-school clothes - my boys don't care. Wear what they had in the summer, they're happy.

Except for shoes. Somehow, every year, I forget about the "indoor shoes" thing. Seems like the school wants to keep the classroom floors clean (go figure - probably has something to do with paying fewer custodians...) and so the kids have to change to their "indoor shoes" when they get into the hallway outside their classroom. Both kids are in portables this year, so it makes slightly less sense,but whatever.

Kid#1 came home on  Friday and told me that he didn't need indoor shoes anymore because the school gave him a pair. I still can't figure this out. I guess they are shoes from the school's lost and found or something, but he seems to think they are his. I have an email into the school to find out what the reality is, because Kid#1 told me that he "assumed" the shoes are his for the whole year so...

Oh a slight segue - by this time last year in Arlington, MA, we had already received several newsletters home and had the direct email address for each of our kids' teachers. Kingston, ON, schooling is a bit different - I have no idea what the teachers' email addresses are - no indication of how to get hold of them directly at all. Though I do have three nice newsletters from the teachers and school. With very little information, but lots of nice words.

And, on a final note, I'm already starting to see parents posting stuff on Facebook about how their kids are sick - the back-to-school flu or something. I'm already anxious about it. Can we please stop posting stuff about how sick we are or how much the kids threw up? It stresses me out. Thanks.

Advantages to having the family away for a week

A carton of ice cream lasts more than two days. And I don't have to fight anyone for it.

One medium pizza lasts for four meals.

Things stay where I put them.

Laundry only needs to be done once in 7 days.

Cooking dinner, eating dinner, and washing up takes about 15 minutes all put together.

Cleaning up from breakfast takes about 1 minute. Which means it can be done in the morning, instead of coming home to dirty dishes.

I don't mind changing the toilet paper roll - because there is no one else around who I would expect to do it.

It's quiet. And if I don't want quiet, I can choose to put on whatever music or radio station I want.

Yep - I'm enjoying myself.