School daze

Today, our highly independent sweetheart, Bella, started Pre-K. The excitement in our home this morning was palpable. I woke several times throughout the night, fearing I would miss my alarm. Dropping your kids off in car-pool line in pajamas and glasses is all kinds of cool, just not on the first day of school.  The excitement even played throughout our girls subconsciousness throughout the night. They were restless in their dreams, eager for morning to come.

Everyone was SO EXCITED for Bella to start school!

It is a rare thing when the ebb and flow of a household getting ready in the morning is completely uninterrupted. Today was one of those rare gifts of a morning. Bella, so eager, got ready in the blink of an eye. And Jade, ever the helpful one, made her own lunch before I even had time to gather the peanut butter and jelly. Our sweet Jojo, completely unfazed by the excitement, slept right through everything.

Precious Bella, just when exactly did you grow up enough to be so ready for Pre-k?

In a near miraculous turn of events, we left the house with a few minutes to spare!

Just enough time for Mommy to snap a few more pics than I normally would have, which is good. And thanks to ios7, I now snap about 5 million pictures each time I open my camera app!

Notice my "Junior Mommy" in the background filling the class Sponsor/teacher in on all things Bella in the background?

Our school district has this pretty amazing program for upper-classmen. Students interested in pursuing a teaching degree, or a career path into early childhood education, are given the opportunity to run a pre-k, with the supervision and guidance of an actual Teacher. The high school students are in the class for 2 periods of their day, and then another set of students are in the class for an additional 2 periods. It's a great environment for Bella to learn in and the student to "teacher" ratio is almost 2 to 1. We are so excited for our girl to interact with a few peers just a few hours a day for a couple of days out of the week! And I'm excited to build relationships with her teachers, classmates and the other parents.

And this little guy is excited to have Mommy all to himself for a few hours! He's also pretty excited to not have to share any toys and to not be bossed around by a couple of over-bearing, while always good-natured, sisters! What fun he and I will have getting to spend just a bit of time each week hanging out!