School!!!!!!!!!

You may recall that on the first day of school last year, I was a mess.  It was Juliana's first time being gone all day and it hit me hard.  Well, I got over that.  This year I counted down the days waiting for the school to open wide its glorious doors.  We'd been having a great summer, but I was tired of dragging kids everywhere I went.  Oh, that and the bickering.  (Who knew there was only one "good" place to sit in the entire family room?)  I celebrated the first week of school by going out to lunch twice and browsing leisurely in every shop just because I could.  I think I got more done last Thursday than I did the entire month of August.

The kids are both off to great starts.  At our school, all the 3rd and 4th grades are blended classrooms as are all the 5th and 6th grades.  For David, as a fifth grader, that meant a brand new teacher after two years with the same one.  Juliana also got a new  teacher for second grade, but we'd had a chance for a "meet and greet" the week before school started where she got to visit her classroom, meet the teacher, find her desk and put away all her school supplies.  Her entire circle of friends are in her class which made for a nice, smooth transition.  She spent the first few afternoons flopping on the couch with a book when she got home, worn out from putting in a full day. 

David got the teacher I was hoping for but none of his close friends ended up in his class.  He spent the weekend stressing over that and when I left him the first day he was looking somewhat overwhelmed.  It doesn't help that he's a wee little fifth grader and he's in there with some Amazon-type 6th grade girls.  I needn't have worried, though, because the minute school let out he started telling me everything that happened that day.  He talked so much that I practically relived the day in real time.  His teacher was "silly and funny" and the day was "great" and his teacher has a really cute baby and the baby isn't scared of anything except for when her mom sneezes because she has really loud sneezes and when his class goes downstairs for music or P.E. they get to walk on the outside stairs and they can make noise because they aren't in the halls and they can even do that when it's raining or snowing and his teacher has a key for the outside door and HOW COOL IS THAT?

Here are some first day pictures.  My camera was accidentally set to some weird setting like "Panoramas of Neptune" so the pictures aren't that great.

David tolerating my yearly ritual:


My big girl:


This is why I needed them to go back to school: