Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Back to School

Last week my sister in law sent me a message, asking, "How's your free time?"  Hahahahahahaha!  In theory I should have free time now.  Juliette has been back in school since August 28th.  She goes three mornings a week and so I have all those mornings to get stuff done, have free time, do fun stuff!  In practice, today is the first day I've had which didn't have anything on the calendar!  Woo hoo!  I spent the first hour and a half cleaning and doing some prep for Annalise's birthday, which is this weekend.  Let's be honest, that could go on for days if I let it.  So I'm choosing to spend my "free time" writing in my blog, which I haven't for a long, long time!  I'd really like to be posting about Zachary's birthday party, but I'm still recovering from it.  (Nineteen seven and eight year old boys.  You get it.  It'll take me a while and a lot of alcohol to fully forget it.)  Someday I'll pretend it was the best day ever and I'll post pictures.  Instead I'll just give you a little bit of what's happening in our lives.

Let's start with my beautiful boy.  Zachary turned eight this summer.  He started second grade this August and is happy!!!  Really my biggest concern with Zachary is just that he be happy.  He loves his new teacher and is happy with the friends in his class.  He's making new friends on the playground and reports that he is the fastest runner in the second grade.  He's playing soccer and loving it for the first time ever.  (When we went to sign Annalise up for soccer in the spring we were SHOCKED that Zachary even wanted to play again.)  Thank goodness he did because he's having a great year and is actually acting a little bit (a little bit -- but it's more than usual) aggressive.  Zachary has a really hard time acting aggressive, so team sports have been really tough for him.  We are thrilled that he's making progress.  He's also reading better.  I think he's somewhat adjusting to getting up early, so he's getting into a better head space, too.  So far, so good with that dude!  Phew!

Annalise is having a great back to school, too.  She did not get the teacher she expected, but she's actually happy with her teacher.  He's strict, but she doesn't mind that.  And so far, and here's the best news of all, NO GIRL DRAMA!!!  Yes!  I was not expecting that, but I'm thrilled that so far things are going well in that department.  She auditioned for, and made, (Did I blog about this?  I can't remember.) the dance company at her new studio.  The audition process was crazy and she's thrilled to be on it.  She's dancing eight hours a week, which is A LOT!  So far, she's been able to handle it, even though it means that Mondays she's at the studio from 3:30 to 8:30 and Thursdays she has two hours of dance and an hour and a half of soccer.  She's working her butt off at dance and is making good progress.  We will see how her grades are.  If they aren't great, there may have to be some changes.  So far I'm not too concerned.  Overall, she's happy, too.  Yea!

And now on to my littlest love, Miss Juliette.  Aaaaahhh, Juliette, my easiest child.  She goes with the flow, she skips in happily to new situations.  For goodness sake, she even wakes up with an enormous smile on her face.  She's an easy going happy child.  Yeah, until last week.  Last week she had her first dance class of the year.  I was a little nervous going in because the studio owner wanted her to move up to the 5/6 advanced class (even though she's only 4 1/2) instead of the 3/4 class.  I really wasn't sure if it was a good idea, but she insisted the Juliette was ready.  So last week she went and actually did great UNTIL I showed up nine minutes early (instead of ten) for the "show" at the end of the class.  She was in tears and worried that I wasn't going to come at all.  But she settled down immediately and re-joined the class for the show.   The next day was her first gymnastics class.  Oh boy.  I don't even know where to start.  She was super excited.  She was ready an hour before we got there.  We got there early and watched the instructors set up the gym.  And then it was time to start and the tears started to flow.  Maybe it was the 1980's East German gymnast demeanor of the instructor.  Maybe it was the fact that there was no balance beam.  Or bars.  Or vault.  (Seriously.  They knew this is supposed to be gymnastics, right???)  Maybe it was the fact that the instructor didn't seem to care that Juliette was too shy to say her name (and said, "That's fine.  I'll find out later."  Yeah, knowing a kid's name isn't all that important.)  Maybe it was the fact that a three year old was yelled at for incorrectly doing a bear crawl (without any prior instruction, I might add.  It was called a CRAWL, so you have to forgive a kid who uses his knees.)  Anyway, my kid cried and refused to let go of me.  And after all I saw, I didn't blame her.  We watched a few more minutes, I talked to a few parents to see if it was going to get any better (it wasn't) and then hit the road and asked for my money backed.  I don't think I've ever done that before.  But I had to trust my (and Juliette's) gut on that.  Three days later, back at school, Juliette cried and cried and cried at drop off.  Never happened before.  I literally had to peel her fingers off of my leg.  It was so pitiful that I got in the car and started to cry myself!

Which leads me to Monday.  (Monday school was great, mind you.)  Mondays are crazy because Annalise walks in the door at about 3:10 and we have to leave by 3:15 to get Juliette to dance by 3:30.  Juliette was of course ready to go long before 3:00.  We walked into the studio, she smiled at her teacher and then freaked out!  Crying, crying, crying, refusing to stay.  Ugh.  It went on and on and no matter what I could not convince her to go back in and dance.  She even sat -- actually she and I stood most of the time because there weren't enough chairs -- at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf while Annalise and Zachary had a snack (and I let them get crazy snacks that day -- a chocolate croissant for Zachary!) and I helped them with their homework.  I tried to make it as booooooooring as possible for her but she still didn't want to go in to dance.  We dropped Annalise at the other studio for her classes -- it's down the street, which is why we were one minute late the week before -- and then walked in to Juliette's class in time for the show.  She stood in the back and danced along.  When we got home, she drew a picture of the two of us.  We both had frowny faces.  I said, "Yes, we were both sad you didn't go to dance class."  She said, "No mommy, I was sad but you were angry!"  She was right.  I was!  I asked her to draw a picture of next week at dance class.  She drew herself, me and her dance teacher, all with smiley faces.  Hopefully that'll come true.

So it's been a rocky start for Juliette.  I'm hoping it's temporary and not a long phase.  I'm trying to spend better quality time with her in the meantime and reassuring her that I miss her too when she's not with me and I'll be brave and not cry either.  And we're trying to give her more sleep since she's given up her nap.  We're trying a different gymnastics class next week.  And she's home from school now and had another great day.  I'm hoping she'll be back to her happy, giggly self soon!