I woke up at 6:15am today (which never happens cause I usually stay up till 100 o’clock every night) to take the “last day of school” picture. The only other time that ugly hour happened was on the first day of Regis for the boys back in September. No need to worry though, I did go back to bed. Today is their last day of classes, finals start on monday and by the 11th they’ll be all done with their freshman year of high school. I feel like this year was on super fast forward- I can’t believe its over. And quite a change in these boys too. They’re kinda like different people than they were in September. And way more tired. (Jack on the left, Patrick on the right).

Timmy goes back to school today after a nice long spring break for him. We’re going from sleepovers to early bed times, from video games to homework, from tv to a book before bed. Now, while these are all noble pursuits, I’m ready to be done with school for the year. I think I read 64 more days until summer somewhere today. It cannot come fast enough. Summer, please hurry!!!

(timmy is reading on a kindle fire below. a real book.)

This is the last week that the blog will be quiet. Jumping back into work with both feet (and both cameras with multiple lenses) on Saturday & Sunday for 2 communions, 1 christening and a family session (with a communion twist). It seems that its feast or famine and we’re heading back into feast mode. I’m so excited to be working again after this long, long, loooooooooooooooooooooooong winter, but please say a little prayer for my stamina. And sanity.

He is our very own version of Alex P. Keaton- and only those of you as old as I am will know what I’m talking about.  Jack’s running for class officer and headed up to Oneonta this weekend for states in debate . And he looks about 3 years older since September.

and all is well. Two weeks into the school year so far and I’ve had a ton of people asking how the boys are doing so I figured it was time to blog. (Got the boys permission first).

Jack & Patrick are loving Regis! Even though we are only two weeks into the year, I feel pretty confident saying that this was definitely the right choice for them. They are making some great new friends from all over- Long Island, Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Westchester, Connecticut and Jersey. The kids come from really vast backgrounds and even from different countries which is so nice for them to see and experience since our town is pretty “typical”. They’re getting a much broader world view already. They’ve been hanging out after school somedays when there are no extra curriculars and hitting up ShakeShack with friends.

The commute into NYC is going really well. They have a great group of kids they usually go in and out with (the out is a little trickier since everyone is getting involved in lots of different after school activities so they’re all leaving school at different times) and are already really comfortable with the commute. They usually take either the 6:33 (yes, that’s AM) or the 6:44 train in, then a subway up to 86th, and then a bus across town. They’ve even been switching subway lines when there’s a delay or an issue with the train. Their commute is about an hour and 10 minutes or so door to door, depending on when they catch the train/subway/bus. They’ve already restocked their metro cards a few times on their own (how’s that for a quick acquisition of new life skills!?) and are doing some homework on the train every day. They say goodbye to me every morning in the 6 o’clock hour and I barely wake up enough to mumble something unintelligible  that hopefully sounds like ‘have a great day’. John’s been driving them to the station every morning cause you know I do not “do” 6am. I mean, I just went to bed 4 hours earlier!

They’ve been trying out for the Hearn (the speech and debate team which is the biggest extra curricular at Regis), Jack is joining the Christian service club, Patrick has his eye on a few clubs too- maybe even something with track. (Wait, what??? Who are these kids?) Baseball is still a possibility for the spring but all the kids say its really difficult to do both the Hearn and baseball. So we’ll see what happens in the next month or so.

The homework is a whole ‘nother story. At least 3-4hrs a night every night. A total shock to their systems after coming from the middle school where they barely cracked a book in 3 years and “a lot of homework” was 25minutes on a bad night. The work itself is really, really challenging and they go thru all the material really fast. They’ve gone thru the entire 8th grade year worth of work in Math in the first week. They said that the classes are really interesting and they’re really liking it, but could do without the tons of homework. There are quizzes almost every day in a lot of classes so there is studying to be done every night too. Patrick is really enjoying Chinese and is doing great so far, Jack is enjoying German- its fun listening to them both speak their new languages! The dining room table has become the desk where they do their homework every night and by 9:30pm you usually can’t find a single inch of table space because of all the text books, notebooks, papers, computers, and folders covering the whole thing.

Last night we went to the Regis information night where it was so strange (but so nice) to be on the “other side” of things; answering parents and kids questions about admissions and about the school in general. We’ve only been in for two weeks but I answered what I could and the boys did great walking around the room and standing in front of everyone with all the other Regis students (had to be about 100 people there) and speaking to the parents and kids that they didn’t even know. They were “that kid” that I was so impressed with last year when we went as prospective families. I was super proud!

And not to leave Timmy out, he is enjoying 3rd grade so far. He got a great teacher and has a few of his good friends in his class. Timmy’s been loving reading all the Magic Treehouse books and is destroying about 1 book in a day or two days tops. Homework is still sometimes a fight with him (he just doesn’t want to do it! He’s going to be in big trouble if he decides to go to Regis!) but he’s getting better with it. Now he just dawdles.

I’m enjoying seeing all my boys flourish and be smart!