School Lunches, Sloppy Joe, Slop Sloppy Joe yeah.

	I spoke too soon yesterday about the kids proudly foregoing school lunch in preference for ole ma's yummy sammitches. Geoff had his lunch all packed and happy. He saw it was Pizza Day. Cardboard nasty assed pizza. So he made like he had no lunch. The lunch lady toldhim that's okay, he could charge it today because a lot of kids forget lunch money on the first day. "Great! I'll pay ya later!" he enthusiastically says to her with a wave of his hand and a look over his shoulder as he beats hasty retreat... She asks him his name and class. He tells her a fake teacher name and his own name is "Sonic Hedgehog."
	Now, the lunch lady, she ain't no fool. She be all married to Sloppy Joe, don'tcha know. They settled down, have a few kids now down in Lunch Lady Land. She knows who the boy is. She knows allllll the boy's tricks and he ain't even been in the bildin' three hours. And tomorrow I have to pay for his lunch. We'll devise some sort of plan where we'll review the lunch menu and decide the night before if we're sending or buying. Otherwise, that lunch ain't gonna get ate. Anyway -- to answer all the burning questions, all the prayers and supplications on his behalf have paid off nicely, the boy did fine today.
	We all got up nice and early, ate good breakfasts, put on nice clothing, got in the truck and drove over. Geoff confessed before we left that he didn't want to go to a new school and wanted to go back to Kindergarten to be with his old friends. I'd been waiting for weeks to hear him at least admit that out loud. His posturing and bravado in regards to "Kindergarten is for babies and my [old school name] sucks" was all a smokescreen. He was scared to go today, but we got him to make some cute faces and smile for the camera, and even forced poor Jessie to pose as well.

His teacher is a former special ed teacher from another elementary school in our district. She and I had a long talk on Monday night about discipline models, what to do when Geoff just gets up and walks away from something (she doesn't force, she lets them, and brings them back in when it's a more opportune time). She and I will speak whenever necessary (should he act up/badly in class) or just have a weekly progress report that I'll get on Fridays on him.

Keep praying. If you've kept Geoff in your prayers to this point, my expectations in yesterday's interview for him are very realistic. Mr. Gauthier told me he thinks I am being short sighted, but from where I sit and stand, I can only take Geoff as far as the end of each academic year in my wishes and dreams. Aiming further may just disappoint me and break my heart. I do believe the Gin Blossoms sang "If you don't expect too much from me you might not be let down," and I may be projecting some of that onto Geoff.

I want him to make it through this year unscathed and ready for next year. And the following year I will want the same thing. I want him to be successful, happy, and finish the project set before him, which each year will repeat. Lather, rinse, repeat. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Pray the Holy Spirit is with him, and that he learns to control that inner Incredible Hulk that he wants to unleash when angry and frustrated. Pray he learns to control that. Pray he can outgrow everything that society says he needs to be put on medication for. I don't think he needs meds. I think he can do it. With your help, with my help, with Doug's help, with his teachers' help, and with the help of God guiding his path, lighting his way... he can do it.

The best sign that this is a good year is he said he's going back tomorrow. Last year, after his first day of Kindergarten, I woke him up and told him that he had to get ready for school. He responded with "Kindergarten? Again! I went there YESTERDAY! I'm DONE with that!" and it was an uphill battle from there. If he hadn't had such great teachers and a small class environment, I don't think he would have made it through the year. As much as I love our public elementary school, I wish his little private Christian Kindergarten had a program up through third grade. I'd so keep him there at the expense. Yes I would.

Anyway. Here they are, Team Screamapillar's finest, off to school this morning. Many will get the print of the picture on the stairs. Jessie's got good rock star hair. She looks like she could be in Hanson or something.

I left work early today, around 4, to get home to the crowd and to hear the stories of the day. A nice boy named Zachary sits behind him. Jessie has two good friends in her class but the rest of them got split up. She was sad about that.

Jessie already had an hour's worth of homework, so I prepped dinner (chicken cordon bleu, yeah!) and we went geocaching.

We did four geocaches in the woods on the Atkinson/Plaistow/Hampstead NH town lines in the conservation lands. The caches were close together, and were very challenging. If the hider had put them out as a multi-cache this would have been the most challenging multi ever, but each location was its own cache, so our "body count" for lack of a less offensive term is up four instead of one.

I found three of the four caches, Doug found the last, but I eventually would have found it (cough) if I'da stuck with it. We got eaten alive, but had a ton of fun, and it felt great to get out there and cache wild and in the woods.

No dogs were injured in this excursion...

Four caches in one and a half hours. All told, a mile and a half hiked, some through very rough and unused territory (aka bushwhacking) and several handfuls of black raspberries consumed.

I love me some geocaching.

When we got home it was already 8pm. I rushed dinner into the oven, very happy that I'd prepped it all ahead, and it was ready by 8:45. Luckily all the homework was done, and all we had to do was watch a Blues Clues video for Geoff (we all enjoyed it, Old School Steve making Sock Puppets. Yo!) and we talked to the grandparents to let them know the day was good.

I'm off to bed now. It's been a day. And a night. And tomorrow will be another day. I have to remember to finish packing Jessie's lunch (she's opting to bring again. Huzzah for her!) and find out what Geoff wants to do for lunch, perhaps bring, but regardless, I have to pay for today's eatings. Or the lunch lady will sic Sloppy Joe on my aaaaaahhhhhhssss.