Out of Sorts

This is not shaping up to be a fun week. The kids have exams, and I am pretty sure no one has really bothered to study. Which may mean they already know the material. Seriously. Both the big ones made the honor roll for the last grading period, and there was little studying at home then, too. Here's hoping.
On the subject of kids, school, and schedules, I am curious about the people who dream up our district's school calendar. After a Christmas break that covered a span of weeks, the kids went back on the first Monday in January. And they had a half day out last Friday. They are out all day this Friday, too. There are no classes on Monday either. (If I were the employer of a Pleasant Suburb ISD student's parent, I might be feeling a bit incredulous as to the veracity of my employee's need to be off work for two weeks followed by three four day work weeks. It sounds a little fishy. Yet, this is precisely what the geniuses at PSISD have done.) To top it all off, there was that little bad weather day the week before the break. That makes two weeks of no school and four weeks with the kiddies only in school four days a week.
Which means they are home making messes and arguing with one another three days a week. And eating every scrap of food in the house. (I'm no longer certain whether we are housing locusts or children here.) But it is only three days so we don't quite get back on a recognizable schedule. Some of them think lunch time is ten a.m. thanks to the district's wonky lunch schedule while others wait until one p.m. The moody tween and teen are doubly grumpy because they keep vacillating between "get up early" and "sleep in" routines every few days. (At 11 and 13, the logic of getting up at the same time every day just sounds dumb to them.) The little one is grumpy because the big ones keep messin' with her... and because they are cool. She wants to be like them. Argh.