We are almost through week three with the new au pair.
She is darling, sweet, cute, funny and trying very hard.

It is completely different than the last go 'round.
Due to my potential audience, I will not go into a lot of detail.

But we are all working very hard to make this a successful year.
Okay, let me restate that...
The new au pair, Hubby and I are working very hard to make this a successful year. My three kids are still well on their way to making the grown ups batty.

On the Milestones of Life front, my four year old son is riding the school bus to school in the mornings. This was not my plan or idea.

I have been taking Savvy and Smith to school every morning - although the bus comes by our house. However, when the new au pair got here, I could not get all three kids to school on time so we had to do some finagling of schedules. New au pair and I would drop Savvy and Smith off at the cousins' house and they would ride the bus from their house to school - with the older cousins. That would allow new au pair and me the time necessary to drive Sam to school in Dallas.

So now, new au pair can drive to Dallas with Sam on her own. And I was going to go back to taking the other two to school every morning. Mainly because I did not want my four year old son on the bus.

But Savvy decided she wanted to ride the bus in the morning. Okay, if she got up early and was ready - she could ride the bus. Easy enough.
She did this for two days and I took Smith to school those days.

Yesterday, Savvy, in her best snake-oil salesman tone, convinced Smith he wanted to ride the bus with her.

At this point she then tells me that after the bus picks her up, it goes and picks up older cousins. (who I know will look after both of them.)

My biggest concern was that the older kids on the bus would pick on him. And Savvy would not stand up to them on his behalf.

Their cousin, a Sr. in high school, is #2 in the state of Texas in ALL classes for weight lifting. I am not so worried about any one picking on my kids with big buff cousin around.

So now, with a combination of pride and grief, I walk both kids to the end of the driveway and put them on the school bus each morning.
and tell myself it is going to be okay.
that they are supposed to grow up and be independant.
that this is my ultimate responsibility - to raise self-sufficient kids.

just didn't know i was going to take such a big leap this week...

sniff, sniff...