into the swing of things

I'm not really sure about this school thing. People think that parents love school since it means that their kids are out of the house (and happy about it!) for hours on end, but so far school has been kind of a pain for me (and after all, it's all about me, right?). See, Devin has to be out of the house by 6:45 am to get to school on time. 6:45 AM!!!! Those who know Devin well know that he is like me in the morning, which means that he is in a total fog in the morning. While he has been doing well with his 6:00 am wake up call, he's not quite the same sweet kid in the afternoons that I am used to. I know he's tired, we all are. So, since school has started our morning starts an hour earlier than it did before, which just hurts. Now factor in also that Alex and Isabel take afternoon naps and you would think that I have little reason to complain. However, this summer I was lucky enough to get their naps to coincide most days, and Devin would have a "quiet time" while they were napping, thus buying me about an hour most days to relax or catch up on email, write in my blog, etc. Now, when I am able to get the two little ones down for a nap, I have to go out to meet Devin's bus. Since Devin starts school before dawn, he eats lunch at 10:30 am (seriously) so he's typically starving when he gets off the bus. So Devin eats a snack and by the time he's done Alex is awake.
Now the boys do go to bed a little earlier, but Isabel is not following their lead. So in total since school started I get up an hour earlier, lose my break in the middle of the day and my evening is equally long. How is the fourteen to fifteen hour day better than the summer?
I'm sure that the routine will improve once I get into the swing of things more and can figure out how to get some down time during the day. Otherwise I'll be counting the days until summer vacation more than the boys!