I have a third grader!

I am so not old enough to have a kid in the third grade. An almost NINE YEAR OLD!
The first day of school went similar to the last few years........
Tess got up early, got dressed in approximately 52 seconds, and then sat around watching the clock. Luckily, we don't sleep in around this house anyway, so the rest of us tried to feed off of her energy/excitement! A nice celebratory breakfast of mini pancakes was served, pictures were taken, and it was time for me to go to work and daddy to start the car for the long 2 minute drive to school.
We had been to Open House the night before to drop off school supplies, meet the teacher,pay for lunches, and socialize with kids/parents we haven't seen all summer. It's basically a big circus of noise, but an important social time for the kids. I spoke to Tess's teacher for less than a minute and we were out the door. I spent more time filling out the required paperwork.

Tess has several close friends in her class, and she's having fun re-connecting with friends that she hasn't been classmates with the past few years. It has been a major relief to her that a couple of boys are NOT in her class this year. They were pretty spazy and it really bothered her to have them around. Evidently they occupied a lot of the teacher's time discipline-wise, and Tess has never understood why kids don't do what the teacher asks them to do. It has always puzzled her. Isn't that hoot? The night before school we went over the classroom handbook, including the discipline page, and I gave my schtick of "a verbal warning from the teacher better be all it takes, because if I have to be notified, you had better have a good story."

First day was "kinda boring" because "all we did was read the handbook and talk about the expectations" Further questioning always provides more details. Each evening we go over her agenda and I still ask the "tell me three things that happened today."

This was the first year Tess honestly wasn't real excited about school starting. She had a good summer, and third grade has been built up to be a pretty stressful year for these kids(and the parents too, no doubt). It's the first year they get an actual letter grade for their work. It's also the first year they get to do fun things like Drama Club. Do you think she'll want to participate?
Is her last name Martens?


ps. Sorry this blog has been without pictures for so long. Andy started putting them on an online picture place and they download all funky. Now that we have the external hard drive, I am hoping to be able to embellish my blogs again with gratuitious pictures of my girls!