A Jen Too Many

I am sitting in the house, nearly alone. The Boy Child is the only one here and he is leaving soon to go hang out with some friends. My Sweetheart has gone to work, the girls are gone to school. I have been working on shoveling out the living room, which was left in a more than usual state of chaos this morning.

Except for the buzz of the computer fan and an occasional metallic clack from the dryer, everything is quiet.

I am handling the first day of school very well. I seem to have gotten my weepies out of the way last night at 10:30 p.m. when I turned off the movie I'd been watching and starting my nightly closing-up routine. That's when it hit me that I would spend the next day without a warm little cuddlebug filling the house with her special brand of sunshine, and I broke down and spent about half an hour crying.

Yesterday was filled with getting ready. There was paperwork from orientation to be filled out, clothes to be laid out, pictures to be taken (for the school's star student* forms), backpacks to be filled up, and interspersed throughout the whole thing Oldest Girl Child's fits of glee, and Youngest Girl Child's bouts of, "But I don't want to leave you, Mommy!" followed by hugs and weeping. Her weeping, not mine.

Not that YGC was as upset as she made herself out to be. Her feelings were real, but I know her well enough to recognize when she's exaggerating or pretending more than she's really feeling. I've probably mentioned before that she does this thing where she sometimes decides how she's supposed to feel and then acts it out. Unfortunately, these feelings usually tend to be negative. She decides she's afraid of something, or some situation, for example. Or she decides she's shy. Or she decides she doesn't like something. That's what she's been doing with school - taking her normal trepidation and acting out this dramatic, negative scenario.

I recognize what she's doing, because, well, that's what I used to do when I was little. It wasn't a positive trait for me either. In fact, it caused me a great deal of trouble in my early years, especially the tendency toward being negative. If I had allowed myself to be positive, it might have worked to help me, instead of hinder me, but... *shrug* With YGC, I'm working on teaching her to overcome that negativity, to be positive and find a way to make the good happen, instead of going all passive and moving to avoid the bad that might never come.

I hope I am doing the right things to help her. It scares me to think of how difficult her life will be if she doesn't learn this.

For example: Last night OGC said to me, "Mommy, do you remember the girl who sat at my table during orientation? I think she wants me to be her friend. She looked like she was shy."

I couldn't help flashing back to what YGC said after leaving her orientation. "I don't think they want to be my friends."

They are both going to be self-fulfilling prophecies, if I can't head YGC off.

When she forgets to be negative, though, YGC is very excited about going to school. Just before bedtime last night the two of them were literally jumping with excess energy and the decibel levels were getting alarmingly high.

We had orientation a couple of nights ago, which had us going to the school for the girls to meet their new teachers, and for me to get school supply lists and find out what the teachers' expectations are for this school year.

YGC's teacher seems very nice. YGC had drawn a picture for her (a fountain, I was informed, looking at the confusion of blue marker blobs and lines) which we gave her as soon as we got in the room. She smiled brightly at YGC, thanked her and said she'd hang it up. She gave us a sheet of paper with everything we might need to know - start times, lunch times, etc. I would have loved her for that alone. In Oldest Girl Child's previous years at school no-one has ever done that for me. I know more now about how the school operates than I ever have.

OGC's teacher is the only man teaching in this school. I think this will be a good experience for her. I was impressed by his manner during the orientation, and rather taken aback by his announcing that the kids didn't need to bring any school supplies. He will provide everything they need, although we are welcome to donate anything we like. So I sent OGC off to school this morning with everything we'd bought for her, telling her to give it to her teacher.

We've been working for the last month on getting YGC in the habit of getting up at 6:30. She is a little night owl, much like her parents, and has always been resistant to a schedule. Oh, I could get her on one, if I worked hard enough, but the first breath of wind that came along would knock her off that perch.

Really, the amazing thing is not that YGC is a night owl, but that OGC is such a lark. She's been waking up at 6:30 all summer, just because that's what she's used to and she likes to get up that early. She's like my brother S, who has also always mystified me. After half a lifetime of early risings I still hate, hate, hate them, and take several minutes to figure out how to keep my balance and make my eyes focus. If I jump out of bed too quickly I tend to walk into walls.

To make life easier (on me), we bought the girls a nightlight alarm clock. OGC is usually up before the alarm goes off, but YGC has been waking up very nicely to the alarm and, after taking a few minutes (to get her balance and focus her eyes?), will stagger out to the living room, wrapped in a blanket. She'll huddle in a corner of the couch watching some half hour show, like Fetch, or Cyberchase, then emerge to announce that she's hungry.

Last night, we discussed the morning procedure for school days. "No TV until you are dressed!" I told them. OGC was fine with this. In fact, she was up and mostly dressed when I staggered out of the bedroom this morning. My alarm goes off five minutes before theirs, so I was able to hear their alarm when it went off. YGC staggered out, OGC went to turn on the TV, and I stopped her. "Remember? Clothes?"

"Oh, right!" So then OGC turned to chivvying her sister into her clothes.

TV is a great motivator. YGC was moving in record time.

Their father is working swing shift right now, but he wanted to be up to see them off, so I got him up at a quarter after, and he joined us for scripture study and family prayer. Then we headed off to the bus.

Which was 20 minutes late.

This was good and bad. It gave YGC time to play with the other kids at the bus stop and relax. It also, however, gave her more time to agonize and cry and worry about bad things. In the end, though, when the bus drove off she was grinning as she waved to me from her window.

And then I went home and took a nap, which was absolutely delicious. Right now I feel rather weird, kind of twitchy and itchy. Even with TBC here the house feels empty. I'm feeling very relaxed after that nap (two whole hours!! Do you know how long it's been since I took a long nap like that? Usually I catch, at most, 15 minutes, and even then it's frequently been while sitting up with YGC on my lap.) I've been cleaning, while rejoicing that it won't all be undone in the next half hour. I would listen to music, but I'm enjoying the silence way too much. It's so nice and peaceful here right now.

But the emptiness is still making my skin feel weird.
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* Every student at the school fills out one of these forms. Over the year the school counselor will randomly draw a few every week, which will go up in the cafeteria until the next week. When they come down, the kids get to take them home, along with a folder and a certificate and pencil. I guess it is meant to be a self-esteem builder kind of thing.**

**Something that tends to backfire on OGC. Last year she came home from field day with a ribbon for participation. She ignored it until I picked it up and said, "Oh! You got a ribbon?" She kind of rolled her eyes and said, "Yeah, everyone got one of those." It's now just another toy, played with rather less than most of the others. She does enjoy being a star student and having her picture up, though. She adores attention.