First day of school!

M&M & Luke started school today! Luke is in 1st grade and has the same teacher that M&M had for 1st grade. M&M has her first male teacher this year for 4th grade. The beginning of the year is pretty hectic because the school tends to be very unorganized. They don't give out any bus schedules until after the first day and the kids aren't told ahead of time where to line up for their classes. M&M gets very nervous on the first day of school so I had the kids ride the bus to school so they would know what bus number to get on in the afternoon and then I drove to the school to help the kids find their classes & teachers.

Luke was supposed to go to school last Friday to meet his teacher and to find out where to go today, but we got the notice about the meeting after it had already taken place. I had our mail put on hold at the post office while we were out of town and they were supposed to deliver the accumulated mail starting last Thursday. Well, on Thursday we didn't get any mail and we didn't on Friday either. So on Saturday I went to the post office and found out that they were holding it there for me to pick up because there was too much to fit in our mailbox - nice of them to let me know, huh? Luckily for Luke there is a friend of his in our neighborhood that is in the same class and rides the same bus so I told Luke to just follow her to find out where to line up.

After I got to the school I located M&M who was kind of wandering around not knowing where to go and then we went over to Luke's class to talk to his teacher. Mrs. Bray gave M&M a hug and I pointed out to her that Luke was M&M's brother. She was surprised to hear that because she hadn't made the connection yet. Mrs. Bray said that she had already introduced herself to Luke and had asked Luke if he would be a friend to another boy in the line - to which Luke said 'sure' and then introduced himself to the boy. Mrs. Bray was pretty impressed with Luke's outgoing attitude.

I then took M&M to the back of the school where the older classes were lined up. We ran into one of her teachers from last year who gave her a hug and said that she was so sad when she saw M&M's name on another class list. She then said that she had already talked to M&M's new teacher about her and said that she was sure M&M would do just fine this year. We then walked a little farther & I saw some students that I recognized from her class last year. There wasn't a teacher's name where they were lining up but I asked what class it was and they said it was Mr. Redmond's class - which is M&M's teacher. I talked to one of the moms there and asked if she knows anything about the teacher. She said that her son had him a couple of years ago and while he isn't known as one of the better teachers at the school, this mom & her son didn't have any problems with him and haven't heard anything bad about him. We will get to meet him tomorrow night at back-to-school night.

It's definitely going to be different having just the two younger girls at home during the day now...