pa-jammy
It’s here. The first day of high school. First day not wearing uniforms. First day at an “English” school.
Oliver was not as unhappy as he looks here, I swear.
I also had to take one in the same order as their very first day of preschool, 11 years ago:
I had to do a lot of research to figure out who was who in that first picture. Also I couldn’t convince them to hold trains this time.
That is the sound of silence. Yes, it’s very quiet in the house now. Gloriously so, in fact. The boys went back to school today! I mean, who knows for how long. So I am going to enjoy the peace and quiet while it lasts.
And with masks, since that’s what they’ll actually look like for most of the day:
and waiting for the bus:
And just for funsies, the first day of school ever, ten years ago yesterday, and today.
They’re a little taller now.
I don’t need to tell you, it sure looked different from years past!
And their classrooms:
They’re all in the same class this year to make life a bit easier and safer, if they do end up back in a real classroom. I guess we’ll see.
And for reference, here they are on the first day at their school, 9 years ago.
Middle school. I sure hope it’s kinder to them than it was to me.
I promise, they’re happier than the smiles (or lack thereof) would indicate. Especially Miles. That’s his “smile.”
They enjoyed looking at all of their past first day of school pictures, so I had them re-do this one from 8 (eight!!!) years ago.
They’ve changed a little.
Sigh.
For now, our bus stop is literally a block and a half away, which is amazing. But we will probably move to one a bit further away so they won’t have to be on the bus for two hours (!) every afternoon. I’ll enjoy this little walk until then.
Getting on the bus!
Sewing tangent: I made Miles’s jacket and Oliver’s leggings. The jacket was a real labor of love, it’s the Go To jacket by Patterns for Pirates. I’ll post more about it later.
Yes, you read that right.
FIFTH grade.
Thank goodness they don’t go to an elementary school because if they were going off to a middle school next year I’d probably be freaking out a lot more. But as it is, they’ll be staying at the same school so it’ll be less traumatic for everyone. (Also maybe less exciting though they will get lockers next year at least.)
Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is, when they started at their school, they looked like THIS:
(note where they come up to on the window)
and today they look like this:
Holy cow.
This year the bus picks them up in the neighborhood, which is exciting. There will be some kinks to work out, just like there were last year. It was 40 minutes late picking them up, for instance.
OF COURSE I brought my camera!
Well, it’s just as well the bus finally arrived because yesterday my van broke down. Hooray. So this was how I spent the latter part of my morning. Yippee.
Now go and pity-buy some grocery bag dispensers or tote bags, why don’t you?
It’s the most wonderful time of the year!!!!
I know I use the line from my favorite Christmas song a lot (first time I see Honeycrisp apples in the store, for instance) but in this case, it is so true. Because not only was today the first day of school after a summer with very little camp and a lot of boys staying home rotting their brains while I worked, but it is also the first day of RIDING THE BUS!
YES! No more driving them to/from school! (Granted, we carpooled, so it was normally only one 90 minute round trip a day, not two, but still.) The bus stop is 10 minutes away, and because they get dropped off early and picked up late, I can now fit my entire work day in when the boys are at school! No more coming home at 8:45 and leaving at 3:15. Now I can get home at 7:30 and leave at 4:30. Amazing!
Now, you can see that my standards are falling very rapidly. Since we have to leave for the bus stop just before 7am, I didn’t have time to get my nice camera out, so cell phone photos it is.
Yes, there have been some hair changes. They all got haircuts, and Linus wanted to go blond, and Oliver wanted to go ginger. Linus’s isn’t too dramatic, and Oliver’s looks pink from the front because the purple from before isn’t going anywhere. But it looks better than I expected when he told me he wanted orange hair like Andrew from the Great British Baking Show:
So anyway, we headed to the bus stop where there was a crowd of kids from their school, with more ecstatic parents. The principal even showed up!
Of course I have (not great) photos of the boys getting on the school bus for the very first time…
(But you can see the color of Ollie’s hair better there.)
I think Mary Catherine summed our excitement about the bus best in the following photo:
Here we go again.
And in case you were wondering, they weren’t making the WordPress “w” with their fingers, but a 3 for third grade. Not sure why they didn’t want to use three fingers on one hand, but whatever. Cute.
And for funsies, the first day at their school, five years ago…
They’ve grown a teensy bit since then. (Look at the window, to compare.)
Relatedly, I wrote this post the other day for the New Orleans Moms Blog.
Look at those shiny new sneakers! Oliver’s kill me. They’re so dang white. I kept thinking he only had socks on. Bless his heart, he’s super proud of them.
I walked them into school today, and Miles had kind of a hard time. It’s not even that he was scared of the unknown, he just didn’t want summer to end. I feel ya, buddy. I should be celebrating the start of school, but honestly, I’m not pumped about homework and the daily hour and a half commute across town to pick up the kids.
Oh, you want to see other first day of school posts? Sure!
(Wait, I just have to post this one pic, from their first day of prek-3, four years ago!)
Today was the first day of first grade. I have no idea how on earth that happened. Sigh.
and to compare to their first day at their school, three years ago (because you know I love nothing better than comparison pictures):
I mean, really? Come on. So cute.
No one had any problem walking in this year, which I think was a first. There was no fighting over who was going to go first, no tears, nothing. I’m so proud of them. Sniff.
(Did I spell that right? It’s one of those words I’ll never be totally confident I’m spelling right, like niece. Neice? You know what I mean.)
Anyway, yes. Today is the boys’ first day of kindergarten. We went to the school on Monday to get their class assignments, and I’m very happy with their teachers and who is in their classes. (Is it wrong that I was more concerned about the friends in their classes than their teachers?) Oliver has Linus’s teacher from last year, and Miles’s teacher’s aid from last year. Miles and Linus have new male teachers, but Linus’s aid is Miles’s from last year. Confusing enough? Millie is now in Oliver’s class, and the boys’ twin BFFs are, like last year, one in Oliver’s class, and the other in Linus’s. Anyway.
I cut their hair last night, for the first day of school. Tried to make it look different from each other. I may have gone a bit far. Ah well, they’re boys! It will grow back!
At home:
Walking into school (Oliver still a little weirded out by his super short hair):
When we got inside, they weren’t thrilled to be going into their classes, but it went much better than last year. The sweetest, most heartwarming moment ever ever ever was when Oliver was standing outside his class, not budging. So I went inside and grabbed Anders (one of the aforementioned twins) and asked him to come see Oliver. He walked up to Oliver and gave him and enormous hug (well, first he went for Miles) and then the two of them walked into the classroom without a backwards glance. Oh, my heart!
Sniff, sniff, they’re growing up so fast!
PS Look at them compared to the window for the first day of school last year and two years ago…yep, they’re growing!
Today was the first day of school for the boys. I mean, for this year. Their second “first day of school” ever. I was so ready for today to get here. The gap between camp ending and school starting (only a week and a half) involved a lot of driving and juggling childcare and last minute back-to-school tasks. So I’m glad we’ll be getting back into our school year routine.
But the routine will start tomorrow. Today I walked the boys in for their first day of class. It went about as well as could be expected. Look how happy they look before we left the house! (I told them to do their happy dances.)
Now serious:
Compare to last year. Gaaah! (They’re wearing the same shorts.)
And then, because you KNOW I love to take the same type of picture over time, I did the “backpack” shot again. {Here’s last year’s shot}
On the drive to school (“new new school”, that is – “old school” is daycare and “new school” is the French school, but the old campus) the boys were informing me that they were NOT excited about school and they were NOT going to get out of the car. Dream on, kids.
I had to park kind of far away so that we could walk in (after today I’ll be dropping them off) but as we got closer, they got more trepidatious.
We went in, and I had to show them everyone’s classrooms, before I was able to leave Linus in his. He wasn’t thrilled with me. He cried. It took me a while to get him into the room, but eventually he did, without too many tears. Relatively speaking.
{No pictures. I was too busy trying to get myself extricated. And then I thought it would be cruel to take a picture of him crying for me.}
Oliver was next.
Okay, I lied. I had to take a picture. He was much harder to shake. I had to pry my hand from his with a crowbar. Ugh.
Finally, Miles and I made our way to his room. He seemed resigned to his fate at this point, so there were no tears. Just a bit of hand holding and some extra hugs. And “the lip.” But I was able to get a photo with his teacher.
Millie is in Miles’s class, so while I couldn’t get a picture of them together, at least I was able to get one of her with her mommy and daddy.
By the time I left Miles, everyone was calm. Whew. Hopefully they will have forgiven me by the time I see them tonight.
Today was the boys’ first day of school. For real this time. I know I always called daycare “school” (it just sounded funny to me, that’s why I liked to say it) but now, they are actually in a school. A school that I hope they will be in until they graduate from high school. But considering this is the first year the school has been opened, I can only hope it will be open for another 15 years.
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