First Day of Torture

Well it's that time of year, when the beauty of sleeping late is brought to an abrupt halt, and thoughts turn to "COME ON, WE'RE GOING TO BE LATE!!!"
But not this year, not if I can help it. I actually started this mode of thinking middle of last year, and I call it; "if we're late, we're late." It works out sooooo much better for everyone. Now I basically deal with getting one of my two children to school, and I do it three times a week. And it is a bit a of a unique situation. Adrian is almost 11 years old, and is starting 5th grade. He has been splitting his school day between the public school in Boulder, and a small private school/miracle dedicated to teaching children with Dyslexia how to learn in a world where the public school system will not even say the word Dyslexia. The basic reason we keep him in the public school system is for the social contact, and music, art, and PE. He goes to the public school in the AM, and that is by design, because Adrian knows quite well that he, like his parents, doesn't always function well before noon. So with this schedule, I don't care if he has some, or many mornings, where he needs more time to get it together for "school." My main concern, is that he has it together by 12:00, when real school kicks in. And it is my experience that he has that procedure down 98% of the time, an A++ in my book. Now to be fair, my wife Trrish doesn't have it that easy, because she manages our 15 year old Daughter, going into 10th grade, and she does that every day that said Daughter can't get it together in time to take the public bus. Which I'm guessing is going to go up in percentage to 100% this year, because she has her driver's permit. Now Trrish can handle this quite well most of the time, but the other part of the puzzle is the two days I don't take Adrian. On those days, if Trrish chooses to drive, or be driven by Miss Dagny, then she has to deal with double trouble, and that can stress even the Mother Theresa types out there. And one last point, Trrish has more of a problem blowing off the public school requirements of getting Adrian there on time. So that is just another heaping of stress for her. So, I know what some may be thinking, why don't I either switch with her, or just take Adrian all 5 days, that's easy, because I need 2 days a week where I'm only responsible for getting myself to work. Call it mental health maintenance, or just sheer selfishness if you want, but I need it. I actually didn't mean to go into all that, I just wanted to start my daily record of a school year with my 5th and 10th grade kiddies. Part of my plan is to include a photo each day, and I'm already behind on that one, so I'm going to add the two most recent photos I have, and then try to get back on track.
Today everything went perfectly with Adrian's first day. We had pancakes at McDs, got to both schools on time, and even fit in some football in-between. I tried to interest Adrian in a new game of football where you sit on the lawn furniture and throw the ball back and forth over the table, but he wouldn't go for it, so we played under the trees, and it turned out to be us against the trees, and I have to say, it was good!