Getting children ready for school is basically a full time job. School supplies. High school orientation. “I have nothing to wear on the first day of school…” English subject textbooks ($520 later…). “My shoes don’t fit” Hebrew subject textbooks that, of course, the store is out of. “But Mama I NEED a floppy binder for French, not the other kind that you bought for me…” “I need to go to school to SET UP MY LOCKER.” 

There is an end in sight, I think. (I hope.) As of Tuesday, they should all be in school. As of Tuesday they should all be in school!

It could not come at a better time because things are spiraling around me these days, and the fact that I seem to have a fruit fly issue in my house (and a house fly the size of a small child) is not helping. My two older kids had braces put on this week, on Wednesday and Thursday. It’s all soft foods all the time and a lot MY FACE HURTS! The one of the two who takes meds is unsurprisingly having a far easier time. He’s popping the painkillers as he should and even managed to eat some pizza last night with only some mild whining. The one of the the two who doesn’t take meds is crying a lot.

And then there are Isabella’s eyes.

We knew something was off from the time she was a toddler. She was in and out of the ophthalmologist’s and optometrist’s chair every few months. It wasn’t a wandering eye. It wasn’t a lazy eye. It wasn’t her vision—that was near perfect. But something was off. Something wasn’t connecting. The good news was that her eyes were able to “correct” themselves and she could bring herself back from seeing double, from seeing halos, from tracking issues, from what was happening with her convergence. It meant that we could put off surgery, or avoid it altogether. But in the last little while she was getting more frustrated, more fatigued, more symptomatic. Her brain was just working too hard to converge her eyes properly. So now she has a new doctor with a new plan. I trust her, I trust in this new plan that involves some more tests, some vision therapy, some real hope.

This week, you guys. If there’s an emotion that exists, I have felt it, I have rollercoasted through it. Especially rage. Against those damn fruit flies.