First day of school!

Where do I begin?  Well, yesterday was Scott and Charlotte's first day of school at our brand new charter school!  I will save my reasons for switching to this school for another post so I can focus instead on the cuteness of my kids...

Scott was pretty excited for the first day and clearly a big, grown-up 2nd grader who did need help getting to his classroom.  He walked right into the room, said he did NOT want a picture taken and didn't look back when I left.  Easy!  The only "action" photo I got was when he was returning back to the class from lunch.  Again, totally focused.  I am thrilled with his teacher!  After slightly disappointing K and 1st grade years, I have really high hopes for this new school.  Of course I didn't get many details about his day, but at dinner he told me, "You are ruining the best day ever by making me eat meat!"  That was a good sign...  I am so cruel.  It was even grilled teriyaki flank steak.

And Charlotte...  Let me put this in perspective a bit:  To say Charlotte is a shy in group situations is a serious understatement.  If we were in any public place, she would stay glued to my side and wouldn't say a word to anyone that wasn't me (or maybe Grandma).  For almost the entire last year, Charlotte was ADAMANT that she was not going to kindergarten.  She would not like it, she would not participate and we couldn't make her.  She may be shy, but she knows what she wants and will not compromise.  Then we met her amazing teacher a few weeks ago.  She started to warm up a bit.  She asked more questions about what she would get to do in Kindergarten.  Then she wanted to pick which color shirt to wear on her first day.  Then she wanted to see her teacher again and give her a hug...  I'm telling you, her teacher is already amazing.  So for the past 2 weeks Charlotte could HARDLY wait for Kindergarten to start!  We counted down the number of times she would have to wake up, and it finally was down to zero!  Can you tell she was excited?

We had to come up with some distractions in the morning so the time would pass more quickly while we waited for the 12pm start time.  We did her hair (a couple of times), packed a picnic lunch in her Tinkerbell lunch box, and went to the park.  While we dropped Trevor off with a friend, she was able to see her beloved preschool teacher Miss Cathy and give her a giant hug.  Then off to school!

Mrs. Manos called us all into the room and we had to take a clipboard and mark off a bunch of things we found in the classroom, like the bathroom, sink, flag, books, etc.  Then Charlotte decorated her name tag.  We averted a minor meltdown when I accidentally took the middle part of a flower sticker off and she did NOT want that.  Some quick-trickery on my part, and we were back on track.  Next, all the kids sat on the carpet and Mrs. Manos read The Kissing Hand.  Then the kids blew us giant kisses, and we blew them back.  And we walked out.  When I dropped Scott off the first time for Kindergarten, they just lined up outside, waved goodbye and walked in to class.  I was a little misty and was glad I had my sunglasses on, but no official tears.  But I couldn't hold it together with Charlotte.  I am just so excited for her and all I know that she will learn this year.  I have already seen amazing growth in this summer, and literally in the past couple of weeks.  She was so excited when I picked her up after school!

As an example of this miraculous growth, yesterday after school she had her first dance class with BFF Heidi.  I REALLY hesitated signing her up since our last attempt to do a dance class was a huge waste of time and money.  She did not participate at all.  But she wanted to try again and with Heidi in class, I figured chances were slightly better it may be worth it.  It was hard for her to decide which she was more excited for - school or dance class.  So we were walking from the car to class and saw another mom and little girl about her age.  The other mom and I chatted and Charlotte just looked at the little girl and said, "Hi, my name is Charlotte."  I seriously just about fell over.  This may not seem like a big deal, but for a girl who would not speak to anyone to just confidently introduce herself blew me away!  And she fully participated in dance class with the most gigantic smile on her face!  I couldn't watch the whole time, because she was more interested in waving at me than focusing on the teacher, but what I did see was hard to believe.

My little girl grew up a lot yesterday.