School Ramblings

The kids have been in school a full month now. This means several things:

• I am already tired of packing lunches. It is very confusing to remember who likes what considering they change their minds every other day. For example, Tyler LOVES cheese at home, but has informed me under no uncertain terms that he will NOT eat it in his lunch. Also, he is too scared to ask the lunch lady to open stuff that he can't, so I have to remember to open stuff before hand. Katie used to eat Clementines like they were going out of style, but now she says she 'hates them' and can't eat them because she lost her 'clementine peeling tooth'.
• In the first month of school, approximately 43 trees have given their lives for my children's paperwork alone. Seriously?! This is 2014 people. You'd think we could find a way not to send home the same papers with all three kids each day. Do I really need 3 registration forms for the Wrestling league? Nope. Don't even need one.
• Also in the first month of school, there have been enough fundraisers to drain even Donald Trump's bank account. My personal favorite is the Race for Education. They gather the children in an assembly and show them all manner of cheap crap made in China to entice them to sell out their friends and family members. Then they come home saying that if they come up with 10 names and addresses they get to win the most awesome, amazing, wonderful, I'm going to die if I don't get it......bouncy ball. And I tell them to skip the names and addresses and we can hit up the dollar store for a bouncy ball instead. A much better option without the threat of excommunication from the family. But that's not all! After they shake you down for addresses, they send home a letter three letters, asking for donations of stamps and tape to use for the mailing of said fundraiser. Keep in mind this is only one fundraiser of many so far. Because apparently spending something in the neighborhood of $4000 a year on property taxes isn't enough. 
• Lest you think that school is all annoying, all the time, the kids have all landed wonderful teachers this year! Tyler has the same teacher James and Katie had. He is doing great, much to my surprise and amazement! He loves school and gives himself 'homework' even when his teacher doesn't. He has already come a long way in writing his letters, although his identification of them is still sketchy. Katie has James' first grade teacher and we loved her. She was so much fun and I am sure Katie will have a good year. James likes his third grade (yes, third grade....waaaaaa) teacher a lot, and I do too. She seems pretty awesome. Yay for good teachers!

In other news, Katie lost her two top teeth in the last few weeks. I will try to post a picture soon. After losing her first tooth earlier in the year, she decided that was way overrated and didn't want any more teeth to fall out. She actually cried when the top ones got loose because she didn't want to lose them. Especially Chippy, her trusty clementine peeling tooth. She let them get so loose they were literally hanging there at all sorts of unnatural and off-putting angles. It was so bad, she could close her mouth and her loose tooth could stick out between her lips. Gross. But I digress. The first one finally got so loose she let me pull it. I despise pulling teeth, but not quite as much as I despise seeing a loose tooth do gymnastics while still attached. The second tooth was not going to be pulled out for anything, not even promises that the tooth fairy pays double today. In the end, she actually knocked her own tooth out. She was swinging her arms, whacked herself in the face and knocked her tooth out. Voila! Add that to the ways you can pull a tooth.