The Kids Had A Good First Day

The kids seemed to enjoy their first day of school yesterday. My 9 yo got a locker and has to change classes...I wasn't ready for that yet. We have a small school though and this is how we have to do things in the upper grades (it only goes to 6th grade and then they go to a different school). My 10th grader seemed to enjoy his day as well. I let him drive to school. He wanted to do it again today, but it's just out of the way from where I have to go to work. Maybe when I'm off on Tuesdays. Hoping for a great year for them both.

This Week Has Just Got My Nerves Crazy

This has been a rough week on my heart. I am starting to realize that my baby not wanting to take dance bothers me more because she is just growing up. I don't want to see dance as just a memory. School also starts back tomorrow and I feel like it just went by way too fast and that I should have done more with the kids over the break. Ella is going into the 4th grade, it is just killing me. They are letting them have lockers now, change classes, etc. They will be just big kids, except I don't want her being a big kid. I'm not ready to let her grow up yet. I have 4 kids and it gets harder with each one. I feel so much guilt. I feel like I didn't do enough, enjoy enough, stay patient enough, etc. When they're born you feel like you have so much time, but then you turn around and they're half grown, making their own decisions and having their own likes and dislikes that are so different than what you planned for them. Hopefully after these first couple of days of school, I'll start adjusting better. I get like this on certain milestones my kids have. Too bad we can't keep them smaller longer and let them grow up when we're ready.
   Another milestone happened yesterday too...my youngest son got his permit. He is one happy boy!! He had him a summer job so I wasn't able to get it as he was always gone. Yesterday, around lunch, he asked me when were we going to get it so we left and went and got it :) I had already been thinking about it because school starts tomorrow and I knew we needed to get it done. He drove us hone from Jacksonville, over the mountain and did really good. Then he drove us to my daughter's school orientation. I'm really proud of him. Now, if we can slow time down so he isn't getting his license too quick. I'm not ready for that yet....at all. He's going to be the one that keeps me up at night waiting for him to come home.

My Daughter Doesn't Want To Take Dance This Year

For a few years now my daughter will say she doesn't want to take dance anymore, but I sign her up anyway and she does fine. She loves it, but for whatever reason she says this. She has been in the Nutcracker as an angel twice and has said she wants to be all of the characters that she can audition for. This year she did it again, not wanting to take dance so I looked around at other studios thinking maybe a change will be better. I was last minute, but able to get her into the classes we wanted. I showed her their website and told her about it and she seemed o.k. with it other than it being 2 days instead of just the one she's use to. Anyway dance starts today. I was getting her stuff ready yesterday and she said "I'm not taking dance". This went on all evening. I bribed her by going online to Claires and buying her a Beanie boo and a sleep mask....not long later she tells me again that she doesn't want to do it. None of her friends will be there, she said. I asked if she wanted me to try and get her back into her old class, she said no. It's so confusing for me. I know she enjoys dance and I just feel like if we stop now, she will miss out on do much that she's about to be able to do now that she's getting older.  But...I don't want her being upset and sad either. I did tell her that it's no different than doing the nutcracker. The first year she made it, no one else from her dance class that she knew were in there. Plus some of the girls from the nutcracker will be in this new class and she may know them. My plan is to talk with her dome more and hopefully take her up there to see the studio and meet the teacher (which I should have already done, but I didn't know she was feeling like this) and hopefully she will at least give it a try....and like it...I hope