First Day of School

Tuesday is DD's first day back to school. She will be in Grade 3. 3!!! Holy heck.

DS will be meeting his teacher one-on-one for the first time, too. Not that he hasn't already met him. When he was a wee baby and DD was in Mr. S's Junior Kindergarten class, I went all all the class trips as a parent helper. Very often I brought DS with me. When I went back to work, the babysitter's youngest boy was in JK and DS went on many of the same trips again. He still remembers the trip to the apple orchard.

However, I may have mentioned that DS is a handful. Mr. S has been warned by me about that. I wish I could think of a good reason to keep him home. For example, I believe that the babysitter's son would have been better served by holding him back a year. His birthday is December 30. It wouldn't have been that bad. Obviously, he did the work well enough to progress, as the Senior Kindergarten teacher is almost ruthless about that kind of thing. He believes (and I agree) that it's no kindness to pass a child who can't do the work, since s/he'll just continue to be behind for the rest of his/her life, which would be much worse for his/her self esteem that failing Kindergarten.

But DS doesn't have any of the problems the other boy did. DS talks quite clearly and has a large vocabulary. He can count to 10 and sing many songs, including the Alphabet Song, though not well. I find it particularly funny to listen to him belt out the parts he does know of songs and then just make noise along with the parts he doesn't know, but just as loudly...

MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB!
LITTLE LAMB!
LITTLE LAMB!
MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB!
IT EE AH AH AH NO!

We finally received the call *today* about this appointment. I may have mentioned that our school is being knocked down and rebuilt. This is supposed to take 2 years. In that time, our students will be taught in a building that is due to be closed completely. Their students have already been re-districted to a new school a short distance away.

Actually, only the JK - Grade 3 students will be at this building, the others will go to another school. Thus, DD will have one year at G School and then go to S School. This is most confusing, but oh well. To compound the "fun", another school closed for rebuilding will be sending its Grades 4-8 to the same S School. They all have to wear uniform shirts to keep them separate.

And! They haven't even prepped our school for demolition yet because another school elsewhere is behind schedule and they need to send their students to our old building for "2 weeks" (oh, sure *eyeroll*), which instantly puts construction at our school behind by "2 weeks" (oh, sure *eyeroll*).

Things are in a bit of disarray. No-one's had anything at all from the school since they gave us the new bell times in June. I've met several other mothers at the parks and the library and no-one has any info. I guess we'll get whatever we need to know tomorrow. AT 8:40. Having walked for 15 minutes. I'll certainly get my exercise walking that route 6 times a day.

Well, that went off-topic.

The point is that tomorrow will be a very busy day. DS's interview will be at 11:15. I should find out what day DS is starting at the interview. JK's are staggered in - maybe 8 on the Wednesday, 8 more on the Thursday, then the remainder on the Friday of the second week of school. Since DD gets out for lunch at 11:30, I will bring a picnic lunch for us all. I'm not sure about DS. It may be like the doctor's. I've been preparing him for months, but it could still go horribly awry. But there's no reason to keep him home. He's not behind in his intellectual development. He's not even really behind in his socialisation, except that he takes a while to warm up to new people and new situations. I want him to have as much fun as his sister did. She still loves school. She loves learning new things and playing with friends.

OK, I'll go now. Gack. It's going to be such a day.