Third Grade Jitters

Well ... hard to believe that my baby is in 3rd grade. We got off to what I thought was a good start. She was wearing a great outfit she had picked out and had her new super-cool messenger bag that she had picked out - had a new haircut she had chosen. We had a wonderful back to school breakfast and were running on time. Sadie and I walked her into school because I had some volunteer duties and meetings to attend. I really thought she would bolt and run to the classroom but she very timidly asked if I would walk her down there. Off we went and when I left her there she looked up at me with this "oh, crap" look on her face. She just wasn't ready to start back to school. I can't say that I blame her. Up until this point, her classrooms had been one bag of cotton candy shy of a full fledged circus tent. Bright colors, fun decorations - the whole she-bang. Not so much with 3rd grade. All of the 3rd grade classrooms are all about the business. Standard issue book cases, desks in orderly rows, no bright colors or shiny objects to distract the children or *gasp* spark some creativity in them. I'm told her teacher is awesome so that is good. I'm just not so sure she is convinced of that fact as of yet. By the end of the day, Sadie was convinced that PTO meetings are designed solely for people to ooooh and ahhhhh over her beauty and grace and Zoë was prepared to give it one more shot the next day. I thought she was over her issues but by Thursday her teacher called me to see if Zoë was always so emotional. Apparently she would just spontaneously burst into tears throughout the day and the teacher had some concerns. I assured her we would address the issue and get to the bottom of it and further assured her that Zoë was no stranger to the phrase "suck it up". After talking it over with Zoë we decided that she wasn't getting enough sleep and that she was a little homesick so we have moved back her bedtime from 9 to 8:30 and providing to her a laminated picture of her family to keep in her desk in case she needs a little fix to get her through the day. Here are the pictures I snapped of her in the school parking lot on the first day of school.