Back to School

I have to say I had a hard time with back to school this year. Summer went by way too fast and I wasn't ready for it to end quite yet. But we had our traditional Back to School Night. I did an alphabet theme this year. We had alphabet tomato soup and grilled cheese letter sandwiches. We played a game collecting things around the house that start with each letter. Then we had father's blessings and gave the boys journal/notebooks.

Paul started 1st grade. Which means he's gone all day (8-4). And we miss him. And I worry about him. And it's still a new school. And we don't know his teacher. And we don't know any kids in his class. And there's been trouble on the bus.He almost missed the bus the first day and so it was a quick good-bye and there wasn't much time for many tears (on my side). The first few days of getting up early again to get him ready to go were exhasuting. Then he came home and had meltdown after meltdown. (I was prepared for crankiness and tiredness but not to this extent). Fortunately this week we are all adjusting much better. His teacher is fantastic and I think he will have a great year.

We were so disappointed to move from the great preschool that Sam went to last year. I was debating about what to do this year and finally decided to a swap with a new friend and her friend. Sam calls it "homeschool." There are four little boys and we rotate houses twice a week for a few hours. Last week went well. We set up a school room in one of the spare basement rooms and we already had our playroom down there, so it's worked out well. I'm excited to do some teaching and enjoy my Sam at home for another year, even though he's already looking forward to Kindergarten and riding the bus with his big brother.

Audrey of course (and thankfully) won't start school for a few years. I may have to homeschool her just because I can't imagine my day without my little shadow! She has however conquered potty training. She's been ready for awhile, but I wasn't quite ready and we were so busy this summer there wasn't a good time. I tried the potty training in a day approach and it totally worked. I was so amazed at how fast she learned. The first day she pretty much peed all over the house and would get scared and stop herself when she did make it on the potty. I thought about giving up, but decided to give it a couple days. The next day she had no accidents at all. Today she was even telling us when she needed to go. She's had a couple accidents since then, but they were when she was playing outside. So I'm going to call it--Audrey is potty trained! And she loves being a "big girl."