And School Begins Again

I can't believe summer has ended and the school year has began again.  It was a whirlwind of a summer and I think we were all ready to get back to the school routine.  Ethan is so excited to be in First Grade (which he figured out quickly last year was much cooler than Kindergarten).  His teacher is much more outgoing and fun and he really likes her.  Unfortunately I think she is going to be way too easy and he will take full advantage of it.  It was nice to hear him come home on the first day of school and say it was "awesome".  It is so easy when so many of his same classmates are back for the second year.

Taylor had to wait a week until her preschool started and it was a long week for both of us.  She went from a house of 3 playmates to just me in a very short period of time and it has been a hard adjustment.  And she was so excited about starting school that it was just hard to wait.  But finally preschool started again for her and it has been good.  I should have done a better job of explaining how "pre-K", as she likes to call it, will be different from last year but I didn't. So she was very disappointed in the amount of play time they have compared to last year where it was 90% playtime and 10% learning.  It doesn't help that the learning time is spent on ABC's and very basic skills that she isn't thrilled about.  Just like Ethan, she came home from the first day of school disappointed that she wasn't reading yet.  She did tell me that on the first day of school one of the boys told her that she was his girlfriend.  I asked her if he was nice or cute or anything and she just shrugged her shoulders pretty unimpressed.  I asked if he was as cute as Keaton (her crush from preschool last year) and she just got a silly grin on her face and said "of course not".  I guess that crush continues.

Taylor has been amusing me lately with how grown up she can be.  She is so logical for her age.  We were at a playplace and she was annoyed that Ethan wasn't playing with her.  I suggested that she go and play with some of the other girls that were there.  She walked over to them and talked for a minute and then came back.  She said "Mom, they are going to play freeze tag and I think that is a bad idea.  We are inside and someone is going to get hurt.  I don't want to run into anyone so I'm not going to play."  It was really hard to argue with that.  I just love that cute, sweet girl.