KINDERGARTEN!

Chloe started kindergarten this week. She has been so excited. We did a few fun things to make it all the more memorable.

We did the "Kindergarten Count-down" which just meant she could tear off a new ring each day and the last chain said, "First day of school" on it.
We had a special delicious dinner the night before. We had a roast, mashed potatoes, carrot ribbons and peas and dessert.

I let her have a few friends come over and they did their last day of summer vacation playing in the sprinklers and then we made cupcakes and I let them decorate them with whichever and however many of all my Christmas sprinkles. I really should get some more holiday universal sprinkles. Anyway, they had a blast. We had the rest for dinner dessert.

We had a special family night talking about being a good student, making new friends, listening to and obeying the teacher, growing up, etc. Then we ended the whole night with her Daddy giving her a special Daddy's blessing. It was so cute and I think it made her feel sooooo grown up.

The day of was mostly rough for Mommy. Greg was all worried that if Chloe saw me crying it was going to set her off but I had warned her for a few days prior that I would probably be a little sad even though I was happy and excited for her. I think it made her feel extra tough to have to comfort me a little bit. She squeezed me so hard before we left and told me that I was going to be ok. What a switch huh? I didn't cry there though or afterward although I did get a little misty eyed before and maybe a few days before while we were preparing all the school stuff.

The time actually flies. I just have enough time to do a little exercise with Tati in the stroller, go home, get her down for a nap, shower and then BOOM, it is time to pick Chloe up.

So here are some Canada things that might be different for us than you.

• Chloe is in the French Immersion program which means the teacher is supposed to build to speaking the whole time in French. It was a hard choice to make because their is a school that teaches Spanish but I didn't want her to have to ride a bus for at least an hour a day. She is just five!
• The kids have to have special "inside shoes" that stay at school. They also have to be tennis shoes (AKA "runners" here) incase they do any sort of physical fitness stuff in class.
• The school has signs everywhere that say, "We are a peanut and nut free school!". Did any of you know anybody with a nut allergy when you were little? I didn't. Also, does anybody else give their children a spoonful of peanut butter as a snack or is that just a "my family" thing? And lastly is a sunflower seed considered a nut? [Flashback, when I was a teacher I had one student with a nut allergy. His name was Andrew. He was an 8th grader. He came up to me on the first day of school and said,

"Hi. I'm Andrew. I am allergic to all tree nuts. If I start acting really strange in class like passing out then here in my backpack I have this (pulls out his epi-pen) and you need to stick it into my thigh and then probably call for help."
"So Andrew, what happens if I don't put this in your thigh?"
"I'll probably die."
"Oh. Ok." (he non-chalantly walks away) As you can imagine I looked at him a lot to see if he was acting weird. He had my class right after lunch but thankfully I never had to stick anything into anybody's thigh.]

• The outside of each classroom has a big metal shoe rack (looks like a big book shelf) and a park bench where they put their "outside" shoes on before recess.
• We have to pay a $100 field trip fee. Man, those better be some fun and frequent trips for that.
  
• Also, I bet your welcome packet didn't say this: "Please note that children will be kept indoors during heavy rain or extremely cold conditions. 'Extremely cold conditions' would be when the temperature reaches -23 degrees Celsius with the wind chill factor." Yowie zowie.

So far Chloe says her favorite part is recess. Big shocker. When do they ever say something besides that? I guess in Jr. High when recess starts being called P.E. and then it isn't so fun like it used to be.