First Day of School 2008

I have been meaning to get these up for a while - first day of school pics! Sparky's family had a tradition of taking a picture of each kid in the same spot on the first day of school every year, and we have done it every year, too, starting when Thing 1 started preschool. This is the first year that I have had all my kids in some form of school; for the last ten years I have always had some little guy with me that I tortured by dragging him on errands with me. What do I do with all this free time, you ask? I've gotten to go on some long runs during the week, which has been nice, I run lots of errands of course, and apparently today I'm wasting away my free time by blogging.

Thing 3 started his first year of preschool. He loves it and is completely frustrated that he doesn't get to go as often as his brothers. We know he likes his teacher, because the other day at church Sparky asked him what Jesus did for him, and he said He made Ms. Diane. If you ask him what his favorite thing about school is, he'll tell you it's the blackberries that grow near the playground.

Thing 1 is in 5th grade. His teacher told me at parent night that he is the top of the class in every subject, although I think she must have forgotten about spelling because he seems to have inherited his father's abilities in that area. Too much spell check! He ran for class president and lost, although the girl who won picked him as her VP. They also have a class legislature and a judicial system, and his teacher said she has had to send him as VP over to the legislative meetings to break up some arguments. I think the class politics thing ended up being more realistic than she expected! She also told me that she had a meeting with Thing 1 and the class president over who to appoint as Chief Justice, and he suggested that they choose one of the two new kids in class, since they didn't really get a chance to run for anything because no one knew them. What a sweet kid.

Thing 2 is in 1st grade this year. His teacher told me that he is Mr. Popularity. Everyone wants to sit by him, and the kids keep giving him gifts - cool looking rocks, twisted up paperclips, pencils sharpened down to little stubs. You know, what most of us refer to as trash but first graders see as treasures. I think the first day of school was a little long for him. He came home from school and plopped down his stuff and went to lie down on his bed. I don't think he has taken a nap since the day he turned two. I hated that I had to tell him to get up and get his cleats on because he had to leave for soccer practice in 10 minutes.