First Day of School!

It was the first day of school!  For both kids!  In person!  At the same school!  It was so exciting and nerve-wracking.  Well, they were calm and confident. Me? I was much more anxious.  It helped that yesterday they had a full-day orientation at school.  

I made them take a picture even though they objected because it was just the orientation day.  

The orientation day helped them feel more comfortable starting today.  It also gave me a chance to learn the best spot for drop off to avoid the absolute madness of the school parking lot.  The orientation was only for new students.  There were 14 new 8th graders, and Leo thought that was all that was going to be in the 8th grade this year.  I guess coming from a super small school previously made him think this was an acceptable number.  Each grade has a max of 100 kids, so there were a lot more people today, but still just a fraction of the population of our local public school.  All the sixth graders were there for orientation, and Serafina got to reconnect with girls she met at a summer meet-and-greet, as well as make some new friends.  Leo came home with plans to join the Dungeons and Dragons club that meets on Thursdays at lunch run by the English teacher. They also got to meet most of their teachers.

Today was the official first day.  Things went smoothly in the morning, and I had no problems at drop off because I knew how to do it.  

Required first day pictures. 

Serafina was super annoyed that I made them take this picture out front of the school. She was in a hurry to go see her new friends.  

They still had more of an introduction day than a real day of school, but they got their schedules and rotated to different classes.  I'm optimistic it will be a good year for both of them.  I'll certainly enjoy having both kids at the same school for a year.  I just have to keep my fingers crossed that this damn pandemic doesn't cause problems and they can go to school in a mostly normal fashion.