Beating the Back-to-School Blues

It’s been a BIG few days for Little Miss Sienna. She’s hitting milestones outta the ballpark. I’m really quite proud of her.

First hurdle was her very first violin recital. She’s been taking violin lessons for about seven months and she’s starting to feel more confident with playing the instrument. Still, when she was asked to play in the upcoming recital, she was a nervous wreck about it. She even said she was going to make herself sick so she wouldn’t have to go! When she figured that wasn’t going to work, she kindly suggested that Bill and I go out on a “date night” that evening and we could all skip the recital. I don’t think so, kiddo. The good news is, she found her internal strength and put on a great performance that evening. I was super-duper proud of her! 

Next hurdle: starting second grade!!

Honestly, I can’t believe it’s already time for her to go back to school! Our summer went by much too quickly (the fun stuff always goes too quickly, huh?). All last week, we were both a little bummed knowing that summer was almost over. For her, it was nervousness about a new teacher and new grade. For me, I know the ‘marathon weeks’ of homework, school, extracurricular activities, etc. are beginning again.

I had to get us both “pumped” for school!

To celebrate the last night of summer, I told the kids they could stay up until midnight. You would have thought I’d told them they’d won a million candy bars! We made beds for them on the couch and they chilled out and watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Needless to say, they didn’t make it to midnight. Still, I won some major brownie points and the kids were beyond thrilled. It will definitely become a "goodbye to summer" tradition for us. 

Then, yesterday, I had the kids create and decorate posters with their name, grade, and their teacher’s name on it. I also had them pick a theme for the year. Sienna picked learning and fun as her theme and Grant picked excellence. We were all starting to get excited about what the upcoming year would bring us. 

Then, this morning, it was go time…

Second grade or bust!