First Day of School!

Thursday, August 12, was Callie's first day of school. First grade! The afternoon before we went to meet her teacher. When I asked Callie what she thought of her teacher she said that she looked different than what she was expecting - her face, her hair, everything. Callie's new teacher is an older Asian woman & I think Callie was probably expecting a young Caucasian woman :)

We were worried about Callie crying about going to school on the first day & not getting out of the car since she was so apprehensive about being at school all day & eating lunch in the cafeteria. But everything was fine (the crying & not getting out of the car didn't happen until the 2nd day of school!). After school I asked if she had a great day & she said yes, but when I probed a little more it didn't sound to me like her day was very great. She said her teacher was kind of grumpy. She also said she mostly walked around (by herself - to check things out) at recess.

Then there was lunch. Like I said she was really nervous about lunch & guess how it goes down? She had to sit in between 2 boys she doesn't know & she says she tried talking to them but they didn't want to talk, so my poor little 6 year old is basically all alone eating her lunch with no friends & no socializing. She barely even nibbled her lunch. After talking to another mom that evening who has older kids, she told me that whoever the kids are in line next to when they walk into the cafeteria is who they have to sit by to eat lunch. An adult is standing directing them to places. That ticks me off that they can't choose to sit by their friends! As it's turned out for the past week + the first 2 days, Callie has been in charge of taking the basket that the kids deposit their lunch boxes into down to the cafeteria so she has to be at the back of the line, meaning she's not been able to line up to go to the cafeteria next to her friends. Hopefully her turn's over & this week will be different b/c she comes home most days with almost all of her lunch in her lunchbox. She says she's too embarrassed to eat it at school. I'm almost positive it would be different if she was sitting by friends! So frustrating!

Jack's first day of preschool school was great!



He loves doing what he thinks are rock star poses. I asked him a million times to just stand normal & give me a nice smile, but this is what I mostly got:

Jack is going to the same preschool that he went to last year. He LOVES his teacher and her 3 year old son who participates in class. Also his best buddy Tyler goes to preschool with him. There are only 6 kids in his class, not including the teacher's son, & this year they are all boys. One of the other boys is also in our ward so Jack knows him a little. He was totally stoked to go to school last Tuesday morning and was going to just hop out of the car & go in since that's what he did the last part of last year. Since it was the first day I went in with him though & he walked right in & made himself at home while I said hi to his teacher & some other moms. After school he said he'd loved it.

I asked him what he'd had for snack that day. The teacher's son is assigned to bring snack the first week of school so when Jack told me he had ice cream for a snack I thought how lucky/fun for a first-day-of-school snack! I asked him what kind & he said vanilla. And chocolate. And blueberry. I asked him what kind he chose & he said he had them all. I doubted that! A minute later after we'd moved onto other topics he said, "I was just kidding about having ice cream for a snack today mom. We had carrots & celery." LOL My 4 year old is a little trickster! Then we had a little discussion on tricking vs. lying. This time it was tricking & it was fine (and funny). I told him to make sure & tell the truth when we ask him things like, "Did you make your bed? Have you picked up your toys?" etc. You know, the important stuff. Good times.