A Very Good First Day

So very happy tonight.  Yesterday's angst appears to have been for naught, but they do say that an optimist can never be pleasantly surprised...    

Last year Thing One got off the bus after school on the first day with a scowl on his face because of something a miserable rotten little twerp of a classmate had done to him at lunchtime.  Today he was all smiles, and he told me that this same twerp (once again in his class, sadly) may have turned over a new leaf since he was actually friendly.  May this continue.  He thinks that this will be his best year of school ever.  The Girl is at a new school, but walked in like she owned the place in her silver sparkly skirt and sequined sneakers and had no trouble at all.  She charmed the socks off her teacher and came out of school bubbling about her class.  And Thing Two was happy about his first day as well.  He wasn't even too burned out when he got home, which was completely amazing.  

My parents are still here, and today my mother's two older sisters arrived for a visit.  They will be staying down the road at a hotel at night but with us during the day.  Despite this additional departure from the usual routine on the first day of school for the kids, they took the whole afternoon completely in stride.  I was so very proud of them.

The icing on the cake?  The boys had CCD class this evening--not ideal on the first day of school (to put it mildly) but the schedule is what the schedule is and the coordinator has clearly never had children or she would know better.  I sat in on Thing Two's class since I had absolutely no idea how that was going to go at the end of a long and stimulating day.

He was SO GOOD.  And the lady leading his class missed her calling as a Special Ed teacher, bless her a thousand times.  From the back of the room, I could see him engaging with her and responding appropriately to her teaching style.  I choked up and am not afraid to admit it.  I so hoped that he would be ok in that class, and I think he will be.

Then I came home and ate a piece of spectacular chocolate pie, made by Mom to my Nana's passed-down recipe.  A sweet end to an unexpectedly sweet day.