Third Times a Charm

The girls went back to school this past week.   Anabella started Year 2 with an exchange teacher from Canada.  She’s happy to be back at school with her friends and in an all-girls class.  She likes her teacher.  This term she is learning to play violin.  The first day she came home with the violin she was so proud to show me how to hold the instrument correctly.  We’ve had a weekend of “playing”.  As I said on Facebook right now it sounds more like nails down a chalk board.  I’m happy to see her enthusiasm with learning something new.  Chloe began kindergarten (preparatory as they call it at Girls Grammar), for the third time…third times a charm!  Just three days before the new school year, Chloe was accepted to Anabella’s school, Girls Grammar.  She wasn’t totally in support of our decision to send her to this school since she had started with another school last year.  My little Chloe has had quite a few changes over the past seven months.  She started kindergarten back in the states participating in 6 days before it was time for us to move halfway across the world.  Then, when we got here she was accepted to a small private Catholic school in their kindergarten program during Term 4.  Since it was the end of the year, we agreed that she would complete the full year of kindergarten in 2011.  This decision was good for all of us.  Chloe was adamantly against going to preschool or a “baby school” as she called it. And, I was happy to have her enrolled in a program for the full day.  I got the call about her acceptance into Girls Grammar when we were in Sydney.  She had been on the wait list since we found out about our move.  It’s important to me to have the girls in the same school and to be at one of the best schools Canberra has to offer.  Chloe, however, was a bit nervous with the prospect of starting another school.  When we arrived on the first day, the teacher greeted each student at the door and told them to go look for their names on the desks.  Well, Chloe did not have a desk nor was she assigned a locker.  Chloe turned to me and whispered, “I don’t have a desk I guess I don’t have to stay Mom.  Let’s go!”  Then she folded her arms across her chest.  The stinker!   She put on a brave face and got on with playing with the dolls in the room.  She’s been a very brave girl.  I am proud of her.  After three starts at kindergarten, we are finally in a place where Chloe will have some longevity (at least over the next three/four years).  I am happy to say that both girls have come home each day with smiles on their faces, and completely exhausted.



First day of school, 2011