back to school jitters

 lucy was so excited to go back to school. poor girl was bored to tears with her lazy mother.

we had a major breakthrough with shopping this year. we didn't have to do any! well, i promised her a new lunchbox. and she looked at all the tacky, sparkly, ostentatious ones very longingly. i picked up a nice one and said, "ooh, this one is really nice" (my vocabulary rocks) and put it down. because as lucy's mom, anything i say is "nice" she will automatically despise. not this time. she picked it!
i was so proud. take that justin beiber.

 i let abby pick out a lunchbox too, since i thought making all the lunches the night before would take a little work out of the next day. i let her have free range with the choices because, well, she's been having major middle child syndrome. when she saw this one, her eyes lit up and i could see the wheels turning in her head, "kittens! sparkles! pink!" it was destiny. ty called that night and i said, "you are not going to believe abby's lunch box. it is so dolores umbridge". 

 my mom says don't ever let your kids run around scraggly.

i am severely lacking in this department with phoebe.

 phoebe bawled when lucy got on the bus. abby kicked some rocks on the walk home in sadness. the two girls spent the next 2 hours fighting over who was alpha now that lucy was gone. i sat and nursed a fussy baby the rest of the day. it's been hard getting back on a strict schedule after an entire summer of "sleeping when the baby sleeps". which really means, "i'm in pajamas until 10 am." but routines are good. routines are needed. routines get us out of our pajamas.

and that's pretty hard to do these days.