First.

Yesterday was the first day of school for the girls. The first day at their new school. The first day at a charter school. The first day of uniforms....

I dropped them off in the morning very quickly. Partly because we didn't get their as early as I had planned, but mainly because I didn't want to loose it in front of them. It's so hard not to second guess your decisions. Well, I should speak for myself. Maybe no one else has that problem. It's so hard for me to not second guess my decisions.

The last couple of days, Loo has been very vocal about her NOT wanting to attend this new school. She told us numerous times that she wants to stay with her "friends", which I am now referring to as the "f" word. She broke down several times on Tuesday. Once it was about her braces and the fact that she still has them. Next it was about not being able to see her "f" words. Next it was about makeup, and last, but not least, it was about a shirt. She didn't want to wear a boring polo shirt. "All the kids are going to have cute shirts on!" she shouts to me between snot sniffing. But yesterday, Loo really surprised me. She jumped out of bed, got ready, and went to school with relatively no drama. I was half expecting to have a replay of some of our many, many times at the Jr. High last year, when Loo would sob and sob in the car in front of the school telling me she doesn't want to go. That I need to just take her home. That she hopes next year she can just get into ___ (the school we're at now) That she hates her teachers. And that they don't like her either. She had major anxiety about school to say the least. So you can imagine how glad I was to see the morning go off without a hitch.

Now, Super, on the other hand, was taking this whole, new-school thing in stride. She was excited to go to the same school as her cousins, she was excited for the uniforms, and she was very excited for Discovery (more about that later). She got up and went to school great too! She did ask me to walk in with her though, which I was already planning on. But all went well.

After school, I did the whole how was your day thing. Loo told me about "Kelly's son" and how he's "smokin'" (hot or cute, if you're not up on middle school lingo). Supe said she was stung by a bee, had three assemblies that day, and that she sits by some "annoying boys". She says "but Mom, guess what, I know 2 girls in my class!" I say "you do?!" She said "Ya, I know them from my book club over the summer" I tell her how cool that is, and she agrees. But as the night wore on, more and more things started to come out about Supie's day. First she said "lunch today was booorinnnng". When I asked why she said "All's what I did was just stand there" (her words, not mine). I said "what about the girls from book club?" She said "they just kept running away from me" She's too shy (and proud) to go and ask someone if she can play with them. Later I asked about other kids in her class that were new to the school, and she said there was only one other person. She started crying and said "I just wanna go back to my old school so that I can have friends" That dumb "f" word again!

Anyway. I don't know why I expected this to be any different. It IS a new school and they don't know anyone in their class. I think that one of the hardest parts of it all is that this is voluntary. We didn't move. The boundaries didn't change. We just chose to go to a new school. So there is definitely a feeling of this being an option, and it would be much easier to stay at the old schools. For many reasons. (but we're not going into that today)

BUT we chose this school because of the MANY fantastic things it has! For one thing, it's the philosophy of the school that whenever possible, they don't use text books. How do they learn? They go as far back to the original source as possible. So sometimes that means researching on the Internet, other times, it's going to museums or to the actual place of origin. They go on lots and lots of field trips, only they don't call them that. I can't remember what they call them. They also do Discovery for the elementary kids. In discovery, the kids get to choose what they want to learn about. For example, this time, Super got to choose from gymnastics, rock climbing, ice skating, swimming and tennis. Next time, they get to it's technology related. They'll do discovery for a total of 17 weeks throughout the year. Loo will get to go on "Adventures" throughout the year. A couple of them are camping trips. Another is a rafting trip down the Colorado River. So basically, what I'm saying is that we just need to hang in there, for this first little while. I think in the end it's going to be a great experience!

Song for the day (my favorite school song) We're Going to Be Friends by White Stripes (cross your fingers that the girls will make some soon)