La rentrée

Today the boys went back to school, this time together at École Active Bilingue. Calvin has been incredibly geeked up about joining Carter there, though a bit wistful about leaving his all-french preschool (and friends) behind. Since the Collinsons left Saturday he's been babbling seemingly non-stop about school. Saturday afternoon he got to meet some new classmates and say hi to some friends he'll be joining, at a picnic on the Champs de Mars that we and some other parents organized. Sunday and Monday we got the rest of their completely ridiculous school lists together ...

... then today was the big day! Carter was off to school at 9am as usual, now as a big third-grader of course, the oldest kids in their campus. (Next year he's off to the main campus.) It was COMPLETE chaos outside the gates as 90 kids and 150 parents jostled around trying to hear the principal call names. His name was called early in the first class (luck and alphabet, no merit involved), and he was off. He reports to be very pleased with his teacher and the several friends (all boys of course) who are in class with him. Calvin and I had coffee with a couple of moms then headed off to get him a haircut and to clean the apartment. Calvin had to wait until 2pm for his first day to start - they stage the first day with the youngest only going for an hour - and the time finally came. He was called in the first of the two "grande section" classes, and is in with several of his friends as well - Jacob from upstairs, his buddy Logan (who's dad David is a friend of mine), William from his sports class, and Cammy (?) the little sister of one of Carter's friends. His teacher is said to be soft-spoken but to run a calm, disciplined classroom, skills she'll have to use with these chatterboxes for sure!

Our friend Dave Adamski arrived for a few days this afternoon, bearing butterflies and snakeskin for the boys. More about that later, Betsy needs to use the computer for work now!

Bonne rentrée à tous! (Happy re-entry to life for all!)