It's Finally the First Day of School

It was finally the first day of school for the girls today. If you are thinking "Dude, it's practically October ....", well, you aren't the only one feeling that way! S-town is trying a new thing this year called "Connect and Assess Days," where on Tues/Wed, we had a 30 minute meeting with each kid's teacher to learn about the year and to do some quick assessments on math and reading levels. The meetings replaced the usual Open House night and the Parent Information Nights.

While we found the more personal teacher meetings to be more helpful and less overwhelming, we would have preferred them to be last week. Our summer nanny was back to school, the girls were ready, and it was just weird to drag it out until today. Their little bonus was that when they went to work with Mike yesterday, they lucked out and got to watch the matinee of Newsies (they'd already seen it once and LOVED it. That blog post is coming. Someday. I'm so behind ...). Not the worst way to spend the last day of summer vacation.

At their Connect and Assess meetings, they both showed off their personalities to their teachers. I had asked Q's teacher which line she should go to on the first day. Mrs. H said Line 10. I flashed both hands at Q (10 fingers). Q said, "5+5. Or 6+4. Or 7+3. Or 8+2." Her teacher raised an eyebrow at me. I laughed and said "welcome to Quinn." I hope Mrs. H brings her A game this year!

Fiona showed off her skills during her reading assessment and her teacher proclaimed her "quite the reader." F was SO proud! She also did such a good job starting to explain spina bifida to her teacher. There was a point where she wanted me to take over ... but she willingly started the conversation. We are starting to work on our advocacy skills and this was an awesome step!

On Tuesday (while I worked from home and tried to contain the fighting to a small scale war), the girls were discussing lunch and how they typically don't like to sit by people because then they get distracted and don't get to eat their food. This conversation took place during lunch. When they were distracting each other from eating. The irony was not lost on me.

That brings us to today. Where the only tears shed were Declan's. Because I pulled the underwear that are too small for him out of his bin and made him wear underwear that fit. I suspect the tears were 10% underwear and 90% that he wants to go to kindergarten this year. He's not a fan of the rule that you have to be five. Hopefully the new Avengers underwear in his bin will ease the 10%.

We went to the bus stop as a family for the first day and had so much fun seeing them off. Fiona popped out of their line up as the bus came down the road to give Mike and me hugs and tell us that she loves us. Quinn managed to give us an indifferent head nod (only turning her head slightly) after Mike called to her. Girl was ready to get it and needed us to stop distracting her.

They were incredibly tired tonight. Fiona started sobbing and told me that she had no idea why she was crying. Tired, baby. You are tired. But despite the exhaustion, they reported that the day was great. And they are ready to go back tomorrow. Lucky for them, it's already Friday. Second grade and first grade ... here we come!