Back to School- 2013

Today was Etta's first day of the new school year! This is her third year in the Early Childhood Program in one of our local county schools. It's actually not the school we're zoned for, but it's the only county school in our city that offers the Early Childhood program. Her "team" and I decided at the end of last year that Etta would benefit from one more year in EC before moving on to Kindergarten. 

The program runs three hours a day, four days a week The school offers a morning class and an afternoon class. Etta was in the morning class for the last two years. This year, she is in the afternoon class from 12:30-3:30. I dropped her nap a couple of weeks ago in anticipation of this new schedule (which I think is going to work better for us than the AM class would have this year). She seems to be doing okay without her nap, but she's OBVIOUSLY tired in the evenings. I will say, it's been nice to have our evenings back when both Etta and Daniel are in bed around 7:30 each night! (Alice goes down sometime between 6:00-7:00, wakes again around 10:30-12:00, eats, back to sleep until about 8:00-9:00. Seriously, she's the most sleepingest baby I know!) 

This morning, I was VERY thankful that Etta's in the PM class this year. Etta woke up around 1:30 last night. This is not uncommon for her to do and it can take her up to two hours to go back to sleep. During this time she rolls around in her tent making this humming/chanting/singing sound. She isn't quiet. I usually get up when I first hear her and take her to the potty before putting her back to bed and turning her monitor off so *I* can go back to sleep. I woke for a few minutes around 6:00 and she was STILL awake! Yikes! She went back to sleep not long after I checked on her and she slept until about 9:30. I was SO thankful that I didn't need to send her to school at 8:30 this morning!

We took it easy around the house this morning, had lunch, and loaded everyone up so we could take Etta to school. She was pretty excited about this! 

She ROCKED her stripes and polka dots today!

We queued up in the car ride line and waited for one of her teachers to come and get her.

She was pretty excited to see her new teacher, Mrs. Hunt! Off she went!

Daniel had a rough time with the whole trip to drop her off because he was ready for his nap and Alice cried off and on because she was ready to eat. (I still need to figure out the rhythm so that Alice isn't ready to eat when we're trying to drop-off and pick-up.) So, we hurried back home and I got Daniel down for his nap and fed the Pixie baby. 

A little less than 3 hours later, it was time to load up again so we could go get sissy from school. Mrs. Hunt brought her to the car and told me that she had a really great day today (minus giving her PT a tough time). Yay! Etta has a really great team this year and we are really hopeful for an awesome year!