The First Day of School....Twice

 Back to school felt so different this year.

For the second year in a row, we used an offer through a fundraising campaign for the school to buy our back-to-school supplies. I went online and ordered school supplies for a 3rd grader and 5th grader, and everything was delivered to our house in the middle of the year in one fell swoop.

Yes, it cost more than going out and buying the supplies ourselves. Is it worth it to not spend a month worth of Sundays in stores fighting the crowds for the last red notebook or packet of #2 lead pencils? Every penny.

We also didn't do back-to-school clothes shopping. There's no point in buying pants and long-sleeved shirts when the forecast was for 90 degrees every day for the first week. I knew the girls would've insisted on wearing their "new" outfits and they would have roasted.

My ulterior motive for this, of course, is that when the weather finally cools down and we need to buy those items, they will be on sale because the back-to-school retail season will be over. Heh heh heh...

So it already felt a little weird going back to school, but it was made weirder by the brutally hot weather that forced Minneapolis Public Schools to close for the last two days of the first week of school, since most of their buildings aren't air-conditioned.

Three days of school. Five days off for Labor Day weekend. Then four days of school.

It's enough to screw up any family. Are we in a routine, or not? Are we packing lunches, or not? Is this summer vacation, or not?

So the Tuesday after Labor Day felt like the 1st day of school...again.

Two heads are higher than the fireplace mantle, now.

But we only took photos on the actual first day. They were both very excited, had already met their teachers and knew a few friends who were in their classes. The reports on the first day were good -- both of them have new students to the school in their grades, which always reminds me of the grades in which I was the new student to a school. I hope my girls were welcoming to them.

For the third year in a row our kids are still in different buildings. This wouldn't have been the case except that an addition was put onto the lower campus to ease crowding, and the 3rd grade is in the lower campus for the first time. Marissa is excited that her classroom is in the new section. Her desk and chair are brand new; they have never been used by a child before her. She has a locker for the first time, and it also is brand new.

Marissa finds her locker at the open house.

The Grand Opening of the Lower Campus addition.

When Lindsey and I met her teacher the week before school started, her teacher was telling me about her teaching experience. She's taught various grades, but has settled into 5th and really likes that age. 

"The kids change so much this year, especially the girls," she said to me, with a knowing look of the kinds of changes girls start going through in 5th grade.

Lindsey overheard this, of course, and insisted that we measure how tall she is on the 1st day of school. "Because my teacher says I'm going to change a lot this year, so I can't wait to see how much I grow."

Ummm...I'm not sure those are the kinds of changes she was referring to, but we didn't get into it, we just measured her. She'll find out in health class.