Week One: A Week in Hell

Week One was hard. No doubt about it. Getting back into the routine of school had the family kicking and screaming – mom and dad included.
Monday, Aug. 13, was the first day of school for Marshall, my fifth-grader, and Ellie, my second-grader. Bryce, my kindergartner who attends all day, started back Tuesday.
There was no easing into school with a half-week, as has been the case for the past several years. One year we started on Thursday. Another year we started on Wednesday. These were great. Only two or three days to do the hard time: getting up early and dragging through the day. After those short weeks, the following, full week of school was much easier.
This year, I felt like we were in the Battle of the Bulge, with no end in sight. The only difference was we were sweltering in the hottest 90+ temperatures Indiana had seen in years instead of freezing our asses off in dirty foxholes. By the end of the week, I wanted to hide in a foxhole by myself.
Each afternoon, the kids got in the van and promptly started to fight and complain. For two or three days, tears were involved. Twice during the week, tears started once we got home.
I knew it was bad Thursday when I had to scream three times to be heard, “Shut up! No more talking!” Then Bryce started crying because I scared him by yelling.
That day was probably the worst. Marshall and Ellie were fighting over trays that were spilled and kids saving seats during lunch that resulted in everyone getting assigned seats. Ellie maintained that it was all the fifth grade’s fault. Apparently, the fifth-graders did do all that she said, but Marshall felt that Ellie was unfairly blaming the fifth-graders, even though he himself did not do any of the questionable behavior.
The rotten behavior continued when I took a business call. Ellie and Bryce, who were supposed to be putting away their clean clothes, got into a fight, yelling at and hitting each other. Marshall then tried to intervene, but Ellie pulled her “smiling” trick. More blows were exchanged, more yelling was done, more attempted interruptions of my telephone call were made.
When I finally got off the phone, after apologizing multiple times and repeating the poor lady’s sign information about a dozen times, I had had it.
I sent everyone to his or her rooms. I had to put Bryce on the couch, since he and Marshall share a room and I wanted everyone separated.
Bryce was easily dispensed with. He didn’t want to be upstairs after he had finished his chores because Ellie was afraid to stay there. She chased him and hit him; he returned the blow, which was then repeated by them both until Marshall separated them, because he couldn’t do his homework with them carrying on.
However, Ellie seemed to be bothered by leaving home and staying at school so long, as well as the injustice of having to put her clothes away by herself when she was scared to be upstairs alone.
Marshall was more complicated. He lets things get to him too much, especially things that Ellie does or says. He felt Ellie was blaming the fifth grade for getting assigned seats for lunchtime and was extremely upset by that. Even when I pointed out that those things that got everyone assigned seats were, indeed, caused by fifth-graders, he was still upset. When I quizzed him if other, specific kids would have said the same things, he said he would still be upset, though not to the same degree.
Determined to make this a teachable moment, I tried to encourage Marshall to put on some “knight’s armor” against what other people say to him. I even invoked “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” I don’t think I really succeeded any more than other times that we’ve talked about these same issues.
What it all boiled down to was being tired: mind-numbing, bone-wearying fatigue. The fatigue even hit Michael and I as we struggled with kids to get to sleep early each night then fought to get them up each morning.
On Friday, we overslept. I had forgotten to flip on the alarm Thursday night when I went to bed.
The kids actually cooperated quickly, though Bryce moved a little slower than the others. But everyone got dressed, had lunches packed and teeth brushed in record time. I’d like to say we made it to school on time, but we didn’t. It was still a Herculean effort for some mighty exhausted kids. Michael and I felt more rested Friday morning than we had all week. But it caught up with us that night and we all crashed pretty early.
If only this week will go smoother, but I fear it won’t.
Why, oh, why couldn’t the school board start the year midweek?