Lots of Firsts

First Day of 1st grade!!! With this came a few other firsts, like the first time we'd ever left the house before 8 AM. Her school starts at 7:55! That's insane. In fact, up until Wednesday, our house rule had always been no getting out of your room until 8. It's been a rough adjustment ... for mom. She gets up fine, but is definitely not accustomed to having to get moving right away. Keeping her going so she can at least dress and eat is a tad tricky (read space case). She's cute though and was really excited to wear her backpack. The first day she first put it on at like 7:10. And then again every five minutes after that. We had to keep telling her to take it off and get clothes on first, or eat something. Naturally she was a bit timid at drop-off (daddy brings her to school on his way to work - how cool is that?) but having got to go and meet the teacher and the classroom the day before really helped. I, however, spent most of the day wandering around the house feeling totally lost. I'm just not so sure about this all-day thing. It's a really long time! Is she really old enough for this?? Am I?

 Then, a few hours later at a more reasonable time of day, M had her first day of her new afternoon preschool. I haven't been so sure about parting with her either, especially because this program is a crazy 4 days a week! Twice as much as I was looking for! But she really needed something and we found this perfect preschool that is actually at J's elementary school, so I pick them both up at the same time at the same place, and the stars just seemed to align and so we went for it. And she's loving it. Absolutely loving it. She goes on and on about how it's so cool she's at the same school as J and she gets to have PE and Music and Library like the big kids, which is pretty unique. It helps her not miss her sister too much and really what was most important for her was to start learning to make friends of her own, so welcome to preschool!
And her little group got right to work playing with puzzles. For now there's only 5 little kiddos but they say the class usually fills up by the end of Sept. We'll see. I like the cozy numbers for getting comfortable.

And Dude stays with me. Thank goodness somebody does! Though if there was a first for him, it's probably first time having mom to himself. And first time we've had to be on such a rigid schedule. Wait, what am I thinking? His first is that TODAY is his 1st birthday! No, I'm not kidding. I don't have a clue how that happened so fast. More on that later. For now, he's happily going along with our new schedule, and loving all the walking back and forth to school. We live like 4 blocks away so it'd be a breeze if it weren't for the monster hill we live on. It's killing me. He doesn't mind that so much. But the heat does get to him, and all the rest of us. The first day of school it was over 100 degrees. Not okay. We were all sweaty beasts by the time we got home. I would feel just ridiculous driving when we live so close but 100 degree weather is not ok for walking up hills in. That sun is wicked hot (one of J's complaints about her 1st day was that she had THREE recesses and they were hot, hot, hot and she was too, too tired from all that hot). We're really hoping it starts to cool down a little, because I can't carry all 3 kids home. Imagine how sweaty I'd be?!

Here's us posing in front of their school at the end of the day. We made it! They're so proud to be wearing backpacks. Cracks me up. M just loved her day, "had lots of fun painting pictures for me, told the teachers [she's] an artist, but didn't have time to make friends yet." J had mixed emotions. When I asked how it went, she said "a little bit sad, and a little bit happy." I asked if it was because it was such a long day, since that was on my mind. "No because Lulu said she didn't want to be my friend, but I told her I didn't know anyone else but later she did play with me." Nothing else really mattered (Oh, and the next day, Lulu shared an Oreo with her at lunch and told J her hair was pretty, so I think it's all good now). She was exhausted, envious of some of the things M and I had got to do together while she was at school, and said she didn't want to go back, but the next morning she was up bouncing around getting ready happily. Good thing too, Coop left super early for a meeting, and I didn't even think to set an alarm clock. Glad she woke up! I would've felt so lame if she'd been late on her 2nd day! I need to get with it! For kicks, here's a good back-to-school comic. We have word confusion like this all the time in our house. Love it.