Obligatory first day of school photo! Yay! Emma is in 1st grade this year and Charlotte’s moving up to Room 5 at the daycare.
Emma has been excited about going back to her elementary school, and loved meeting her teacher on Friday. But as we walked up to the front door this morning, she said “Mommy, my stomach feels funny, I think it’s because I am a little scared.” Aww. I gave her a hug and told her that was normal, but that I think she’ll have a really good day. She was a little shy walking into the classroom, but got settled in at her table and got to work. I’m hoping for another great year!
Charlotte was pretty hesitant in her new class, but we got through it without tears, at least for today. She is/was very attached to one of her teachers from the last year, and will certainly miss her. She also has an entirely new group of classmates, since we chose to have her “repeat” the 2-3 year old year to get her on track for elementary school in the future. Last year Charlotte was the youngest in her classroom with her September birthday; this year she’ll be the oldest. (The cutoff for kindergarten in our district is September 1 and they don’t make exceptions, so by repeating a year of preschool she’s now with the right age group.)
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We really made the most of our “last” weekend of summer. Some friends came over on Friday night to have dinner and look at Saturn and Jupiter and the moon through Jose’s telescope. On Saturday we all went to a birthday party at a splash pad for one of Charlotte’s friends. And yesterday we went swimming and had dinner at our friends’ house. We took a bunch of Klondike bars for dessert and Charlotte was a fan. Ha!
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I decided not to write a whole post about Emma’s 6th birthday party — which we celebrated two weeks ago — because there’s just really not that much to say other than it went well, she had a great time, and wow! She’s 6! (Perhaps if I were a Pinterest mom there would be more to say, but I’m not.)
That said, I can’t let it go without at least a tiny bit of documentation. We held it at Acrosports (a local gym) again — same place we had her 5th birthday party, and her 3rd. She loves it, and I do too! She chose “The Incredibles” as the theme, and I made her a dress to match with fabric from Joann’s. We had red and yellow tablecloths and balloons, a few decorations, and of course some delicious cake. She requested the piece with Violet on it, and I was happy to oblige!
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In non-kid-related news, I am starting a new running program today. I mentioned back in May that I was intrigued by the idea of training at low heart rates to build a better aerobic base, and I tried a few sloooow runs back then. But in June I had oral surgery and that curtailed my running for a while. I’ve been getting back into it in recent weeks, and then last week I got an email out of the blue from the coach featured on that Another Mother Runner podcast! She offered to let me try out the Heart Rate 101 program, which is an 8-week plan designed to building your base without having a specific target race or goal in mind. That sounded pretty perfect to me, so I jumped right onboard.
And my 8 weeks starts today! I’m a little nervous about my ability to keep up with the 5-runs-per-week schedule, but since they are all done at low intensity I think it will be manageable. And I really want to give this program my best effort — I’m so, so curious to see how it works.
