First Day of School

Putting on a brave smile.

I sent my elementary-aged kids back to school this week. I can't believe how fast they are growing up! Crafty is now a 6th grader, Sport is in 4th, and Scout is in 1st. Even Curly will be starting pre-school in a couple of weeks!

Let me tell you how my life works. We have been on "A" track since we moved to this neighborhood 18 years ago. I know all the teachers, have the breaks pretty much memorized; my life is arranged around the holidays they are in school and out of school.

So this year Bossy was in transition because they were house-hunting, so she got a permit for Taco and Burrito so they could attend our elementary school. The problem with that was the staple.

Yeah, that's right, the staple.

Because our two track requests were stapled together, they got put in a separate book, and that book got the lowest priority when it came to assigning tracks. My friend who teaches kindergarten on A track gave me the first hint that things were going to be different. She had seen Scout's name on the D track list and questioned it with the administration. They assured her it must have been a mistake and of course we were still on A track.

But then the letter came. Crafty was totally devastated by the news! All the kids she had gone to school with for the past six years were now on a different track. As a 6th grader she was going to have to start over and even though she makes friends easily, she just didn't want to do it.

We put in our request to change back, but the odds were stacked against us. We wanted to move a 6th grader, a 4th grader, a 2nd grader, a 1st grader and a kindergarten student. It just wasn't happening.

Crafty's first day was full of tears. Sport took it like a man. He had at least one friend from his baseball team in his class so that helped, and Scout had two neighborhood friends in her class.

Yesterday was a little better, but we are still struggling. Hope your first days of school were all happy ones!