FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!

Geez, Carlos and I had anxiety all week about Bella starting Pre-K at Maryknoll. Carlos literally slept only 2 hours the night before!

So the night before their first day of school, Carlos and I did BIG preparations for the kids so they would be super excited. Carlos mounted pink wooden coat hangers downstairs for the girl's to hang their uniforms and backpacks. We brought out their new princess backpacks, new tennis shoes (yup, Bella was excited about this), and their favorite snacks for school. I made picture tags for the girls and covered all of Madison's school books with princess paper (Carlos helped me with the contact paper!) The next morning, the girls ran downstairs...it was like Christmas Day (well, sort of) and they were SO excited! I have to admit, I had total butterflies for Bella (we ALL know she is NOT good with "change!") Of course, I had no qualms about Maddie...she is a veteran and so excited.

Anyway, when we walked Bella to class, she was ALL happy and smiling until the MOMENT we stepped through the door! Yep, you guessed it...she FROZE. I literally had to pull her in! We all gave her lots of hugs and I wanted to linger, but the teacher was saying, "BYE MOMMY, BYE MOMMY!" So our brave little Bella looked at me and tears came flowing as she held her arms out to me....! Ahhhhh, I ran to hug her again and literally rambled that I'd be back to pick her up and never looked back! That was hard!

Madison ran into her new classroom and was greeted by many old friends. She is a little popular girl as she is SO OPPOSITE from Bella and has such a mellow demeanor.

When we walked back to the car, I begged Carlos if we could go peek into Bella's class but decided not to when we ran into Maricar (cousin) who told me that Bella wasn't crying, just sitting quietly on the teacher's lap!

ANYWAY....both teachers (Ms Kotake and Ms Costa) told me later that Bella did great! **PHEW!** Everyone knows, of all my kids, Bella is SUCH "my challenge," but because of this, she is always forefront in my mind and I constantly worry about her. I was just telling some of my friends that every rule book or parenting book out there...I swear I have to throw it out the window! She's breaking new ground, I tell you! My crazy Bellz, how we all LOVE HER!!!!