Once a Loser... always a loser.

Mr. Boy is at a new school, and while he is adjusting well... I am not. After being at the same darling little school for a few years, I knew the drill. This new school is big and full of new rules. Even worse, no one else is new, they've all been doing this for at least one year. I have NO IDEA what I am doing half the time. An insane amount of paper comes home, some in folders that have to be signed, there are shortened days, PTO nights, Family Activities, and more fundraisers than I can count.

I've been late for pick up twice by 6 minutes, and gotten lectured. You can park there.. but not here. Mr. Boy wants to buy lunch and I have NO CLUE how he would do that. Do I send him with money? A check? Does he buy a ticket? I have relied on my neighbor friend who I adore to help me navigate. She is an angel. Then there are the other mom's. The mom's who all have coffee twice a week together, who chat in the pick up line, who are in the PTO. These mom's have like a billion kids that attend this school and have been doing "this" forever. Supermom's who have time in the morning to make French Toast, pack lunches, and sew 20 costumes for the school pagaent all before it's time to take their kids to school. I am not one of them, and I feel totally intimidated when I watch them chat every morning. I'm sure they are nice people, they just seem to have it "all pulled together". With all the emotions I am feeling, imagine my anxiety when Mr. Boy's weekly homework packet came home the first time. The first letter of all the spelling words were cut off. Even worse, they were all "-at" words. Fat, hat, pat, cat... etc. So I had NO idea what they were, I just had a list that said "at" 10 times. Sight Word list B was on the schedule, but I had Sight Word list 21 in the folder. Math sheet 11 was nowhere to be found. Nothing matched up.

The next morning, I took the homework folder over to the "cool supermom's" and said, " Hey, um... did your spelling list look like this?" *holding up my list of "at"s* I felt there eyes look me over, and one of them said, "Yeah.. like we toooootally don't like, look at the like, homework until Thursday just before it's like, totally due." *

And then my fellow nerds and I retired to the nerdery with our calculators. (name the movie... win a prize!)

Being a mom to a gradeschooler... just like high school, except your car has more cupholders.

*maybe exaggerated for emphasis