How Many Milestones Can We Fit into One Day?

Preface:  I've learned that it is difficult to blog about the children without using their names.  In an attempt to still keep them a tad bit anonymous, from here on out, the first-born is AJ.  The second kid is Monkey.  And the little one is Miss B.

Yesterday was the first day of school for the public schools in Belgium.  It was Miss B's first day of Maternelle (there are three years of kindergarten here, starting at age 2.5).  It was Monkey's first day of Primary.  It was also AJ's 8th birthday.

Miss B was beyond excited.  For all of her short life, we've been making the walk up to the school gates to kiss her brothers good-bye in the morning or greet them after their school day.  It was finally her day to march through the gates and wave goodbye and she was all ready for it.  On the big kid playground she was the only kid from First Maternelle not clinging to her parents.  No, she was running in the middle of all of the First, Second and Third Primary boys.  When it was time to go into her play yard and classroom, she skipped.  When it was time for us to leave, she was pretty cool with that.  When I picked her up, she was wearing different pants.  (An accident.)  Today, she was a little less excited, there were a few more tears.  She cried when I picked her up and she is very very tired.  French immersion will do that to a kid.  But she'll be ready to go again on Monday, I'm sure.  And no, I wasn't sad to see my baby go off to school.  She made it very easy to walk away because she was so excited, and I was just thrilled and happy for her.

Monkey loved his first day in Primary school.  AJ was excited for his birthday to finally arrive.  He showed up at school with his arms full of cupcake boxes.  When your kid has a birthday on the first day of school, there really is no other choice than to send treats.  Even if it does add a whole extra level of stress to the first day of school prep.

My morning was spent running errands, happily rushing about without dragging a single child along with me.  I'd feel like I was lying if I didn't admit that I had "freedom" themed songs playing like a soundtrack in my head all morning.  Lyrics like: "I'm free, to do what I want, any old time"  (Soup Dragons) or "Freedom, you've got to give for what you take" (George Michael)  would randomly pop into my head throughout my errand jaunt.  

We also celebrated another milestone yesterday.  One year ago (the first day of school) we noticed Luke's hair was falling out.  A whirlwind of doctor visits eventually resulted in a diagnosis of Alopecia and a three-day hospital stay for a progressive treatment.

We celebrated all of these milestones by creating a new one.  After school, we took our first family bike ride - without training wheels - to the outdoor patio pub at the Chateau and toasted our day.