School Belles

I am pleased to report we all survived our first days of school.  Yesterday was Chloe's start date for third (!) grade.  She likes her teachers and she "did stuff and had fun."  For a girl who likes to talk constantly, I'm struggling to gather more details than that from her.  Here she is on the first day:

That backpack is the stuff of legends.  She spotted it in the Pottery Barn Kids catalog back in July.  She carried the catalog around for two weeks, begging me to buy it for her.  I balked at the price and said we could find a different one closer to the start of school.  Not one to take no for answer, she started talking to Grandma Rose about the "chocolate butterfly" backpack during every phone call.  They struck up a deal.  If Chloe learned her multiplication tables up through six, Grandma would get her the backpack.  I wasn't sure if Chloe was up for such hard work, but she surprised me and memorized all the facts.  Her favorite?  SIX TIMES TWELVE IS SEVENTY-TWO! And that's how many years she's going to need to carry that thing to make it worth it.

Also, before school started, I stumbled upon some hair tutorials on YouTube.  I showed them to Chloe and we practiced a bunch of new styles that she said she liked during our last few days of summer.  I'm hoping they will help us avoid the styling arguments in the morning that plagued us at the end of last year (long story short: Chloe likes really long hair but doesn't want to even brush it in the mornings and I cannot abide that--I usually won but just barely!).  Click here to see the tutorial for the first day style (we love the cutegirlshairstyles channel!):

Carter dropped her off and then came back for the rest of us.  Piper, our little first grader, got to meet her teacher yesterday at a special one on one appointment later in the morning (Carter, Sadie, Tessa, and I also became acquainted--Carter took they day off to be part of all the excitement).  Today was her first official day:

I KNOW I had a harder time today than she did.  She said it was really fun to eat lunch at school and see all her friends.  I worried about her and missed her all day, though.  She's carrying Chloe's old backpack that she used all last year because she really likes it.  See why I missed her?  She just makes my life so easy.

Last but not least, Sadie had her first day of school ever today.  She started up at preschool and was terribly annoyed that she had to wait until after lunch to go.  She had to start her morning off at the doctor's office getting immunizations, so I can't say I blame her.  We softened that blow by heading to McDonald's afterward (where, according to my doctor* after Sadie blurted out that's where we were headed, the real health hazard is the Play Place rather than the horribly unhealthy food).

She had a great time at her school.  She told me she only cried once when her new shoes were hurting her (that's why they're missing in the picture taken after school).  I was proud.  She already lost her school bag.  Sigh.

So yeah, the girls are fine but I'm kind of a wreck.  I spent all afternoon filling out forms yesterday (at the end there I might have signed over my house to the school district--I have no idea!) and I spent all day in the minivan today.  Not my favorite.  Still, it was pretty awesome when all three girls were at school and Tessa was taking her nap.  The silence!!!!  People keep asking me what I'm going to do with all that time.  I'll figure it out :)


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*Yes, it's the same doctor I ran into in Italy.  This was the first visit where he didn't bring up our vacations and we didn't spend an extra ten minutes talking about gelato or the Vatican.  Sad.  But I guess it has been ten months . . . and he was a little busy telling me how ginormous Sadie's tonsils are and how they probably need to come out soon.  Sigh again.