The First Day of the First Grade (and Fifth too)

Between going to  the lawyer's office for signing of the papers to sell the shop and all the tennis action, we also threw in another milestone--first day of school, first grade for PeyPey & fifth for LuLu.  We are very well steeped in back to school traditions in our house and the festivities began a few days in advance.  The first tradition (ok, this year we were slack and it actually ended up being the last thing we did, but apart from my admission here, no one will ever be the wiser) is that we make the girls stand beside the school sign to get a picture to document their growth.  A bonus addition is that we get to document their growth from lovely sweeties into full fledged tweens with emerging adolescent angst.  The scowl on Lulu is quite advanced for her grade level.

After the annual takin' o the pic, the next thing up is the Night Before School Dinner.  Sounds fancy, but it's nothing more that dinner at the Pioneer.  Good eats, but no fancy silverware.  We don't know the genesis of this dinner, but we stick to it every year (and I look forward to another night of not cooking, but then again most nights I don't cook).  In theory we discuss our plans and goals for the year over a nice plate of sirloin.  In reality, we play "how many people in here do we know and how many know us?".  We lost this time, as somebody who knew us came over to talk and I had no idea who it was.

The morning of the big first day, the girls dressed in their matching Target dresses.  I was sad over the prospect of this being the last year that they will match.  Lulu will be heading to a new middle school next year  where she'll be too cool to dress like her sister.  Plus, this is her last year with her sizes in the kids department (juniors?? my nerves aren't strong enough to handle the juniors department).  We made them pause for obligatory pictures.  We even took pictures of them walking their own version of the funeral march to the car. You could almost hear "dum, dum, da dum, da da dum dum, dum dum dum" as they trotted out.

Go get 'em girls!  Let's make it a year with lots of fun memories and hopefully, lots of learnin'!