The end of Summer and the first day of school

It was Labor Day, the last day of summer vacation, 2011. We decided to go to the movies that day and everyone except for Teri had trouble moving their ass to get out of the house early. We ended up going to see ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ a movie I thought might be too intense for the girls. I didn’t even check to see what it is rated until we were at the theatre and I couldn’t find the rating. I didn’t want to be one of those parents that take their children to totally inappropriate movies and people like I used to be would shake their totally uninformed heads at and think, ‘What were they thinking when they bought those kids tickets?’ Well now I know, “wow! A movie that is not a cartoon, that I can relate to and the high point is not the snacks”


During the scene on the bridge when the apes are trying to cross it and the cops are trying to stop them, a bomb could have gone off next to the girls and they would have not noticed. They were so involved in the film they stopped eating their candy.

In earlier films, ‘Super eight’, the girls decided to crawl into our laps and after a large soda a fifty odd pound girl doesn’t fit in your lap very well. I expected that to happen again. Gladly, it didn’t.

Weighted the girls and took measure of their heights, both are about the same fifty-eight inches and about fifty-five pounds.

First day of school was on the sixth, Nastia’s first day of middle school and first time taking a bus. We had gone to the school sponsored event and gotten her schedule and we spent time walking around the school going to different classes. This was going to be different.

On Labor Day we got Nastia a cell phone, well in reality I got a new cell phone and she got a new phone number. We gave her lots of rules on cell phone use and told her the school rules were cell phone off and put away during school hours and the cell phone was to be off during her bus ride home. Remember that.

Teri’s alarm went off at a few minutes to six in the morning. I was awake before that because of work stress and had let the dogs out thirty minutes earlier. Teri got up the second time the alarm went off at six-ten. I turned the radio on and began to listen to it waiting for the time to get the girls up. Last year I got them up at six-forty, and then switched it to six-fifty. I planned to bring it to six-forty so they would not be late on their first day. I always hated being late on my first day of school, missing meeting the teacher and it was scary for some reason missing that. I got them up at six-forty and went back to bed to listen to the radio. I am not a good parent; I don’t make them their cereal. I remember my mom doing that and when she was down to the last kid she was asked why she still did it and her answer was I did it for everyone else she wanted to be fair.

At twenty minutes to eight Nastia and I walked Elena to school. We hung around the school for a few minutes to make sure Elena was ok being there by herself and then Nastia and I walked home. That was weird as well as the next half an hour. After the girls were off at elementary school, I had the house to myself, it was quiet and I did what I wanted. I would listen to the radio and quietly eat my oatmeal. L of that changed. She talked all the way home, she talked while I turned the radio on, she talked and made sounds telling me what she thought of my oatmeal. I feel the same way; she didn’t need to remind me. She even talked during the eight o’clock news on cbs. Finally I did tell her ‘shh!’

When it was quarter after we left for the bus down at the end of the street, one minute away, a whole new life away and it was raining. We started down to the stop when Nastia says why you didn’t tell me it was raining; I could have bought my Umbrella. I don’t like umbrella’s too many kids use them as toys, but this time I told her to run back and get one. It was a good thing soon after it started to rain pretty hard and the bus was late. A neighbor from the other side of Lake showed up with her daughter named Amanda and the four of us waited in the rain. When the bus finally came Nastia had her panic attack. She kept saying "I'm notgoing, I'm not going, I'm not goimg" as i pushed her towards the door of the bus. she didn't fight me, but she was scared. I told her it would be ok and everything would be so easy next week. She got on the bus, Amanda followed her and the bus took off.
   Everything was done and it was time for work and I went.
  About four in the afternoon I get a phone call from teri and I let it go to voice mail, I was talking to a customer and he had a problem that needed to be fixed now. After the call, I get a second call from Teri and a call from Amanda, that I pick up. She says that Nastia has not come home yet and no one knows where she is. I try to find the school's number, then I call my mother to see if she can go over when Teri calls me up asking why I haven't called the school yet. I can't find the schools number so I call Nastia's number, remember I told you this would come up. Well guess what, her phone is off so she can't answer it. I finally get through to the school and they say because it is the first day everything is running late, she will be home in a half hour which she was. It was very frustrating to not be in a position to do anything about finding your daughter.