First week of School in Texas!

It is the kids first week of school in Texas.. For Finn, his first days of kindergarten, and for Zoe, her first day of whatever grade she is in.

Zoe had finished 2nd grade in French Immersion, but her birthdate is right after the cut off of Sept 1, making her in 2nd grade here in Texas.  Coming from speaking, writing and reading in French, there is a bit of a gap.  Luckily, we found Traditions Montessori, where 1-3rd grade kids are all in one classroom.. all 6 of them.. yep only 6 kids.  

Finn's class has a few more.. about 14-16 kids, some only come for half day.

Their classrooms are quite near each other, but the kids only overlap for a few minutes a day outside.

The first day was  bit rough.  Finn was fine, except when he was channeling or echo-ing Zoe.  Zoe started crying about school the night before, pretty much crying herself to sleep.  The first day she was so anxious, didn't eat breakfast.  And I could see it in every part of her body.

We dropped Finn, he went straight outside and was just a bit shy.  Zoe started her day with a journal entry in a new book at a table.. it was very different.

But by the end of the day, they were very excited.

That night, Bruce had his orientation dinner, but because Zoe only ate a container of Applesauce and one tiny bite of her sandwich, she was a bit strung out... crying the minute we were in the car until she had food on her plate.  We were going to cancel, but the fuel helped.  I arranged for Liz (Zoe's Texan BFF) and her 13 year old sister to come over.  There was still intermittent crying, up until Liz was in the car.  On the way out to our dinner (form 6pm to 8pm), Bruce gave Zoe his phone.  

Her first phone call came at 6:10.. "Can we let Leo out".. the next one "The pizza is here".. the next one.. "Finn and Liz are fighting"... a few more calls later.. "I'm brushing my teeth like you asked"...  It was very much a play by play phone call set.. all 7 calls... but at least she was happy.

The second day went much better.. but I had to talk to the teachers about her being out in the heat, it is hard to play soccer when it is 100 degrees out.. I don't blame her.

Other than that, she loves her school.. she calls it "Learning camp".. said its not really like school.  I think it will be a good adjustment for her.

She had a harder morning again this morning.. I left her with those tears in the background and that huge pouty lip.  Finn was similar, mostly because of the catalyst of not having a blue table cloth to put his snack bag on.. I thought I'd mix it up, but that was bad on my part.

we are going to have a bit of an adventure this week and next.. This weekend we get all of our stuff out of storage and move it to our newly leased place in Emerald Forest.  It will be nice to have our things.  But all this uncertainty and change is hard on us all.