Sparkles and Spots

Julia was SO excited for her first day of second grade that she could hardly sleep last night. I peeked in at the kids at around 11:30, before I went to bed, and she was still awake, and all smiles!

Here is our second grader, all ready to go! She chose her outfit and shoes for today. I was wondering to myself about the silver shoes, considering we walk to school, but remembered that I used to wear shoes that were not tennies when I walked to school, and thought, "Why not?".


Here our her new school supplies we had to get. Her backpack was trashed, from last year, and her lunchbox was in even worse shape after two years of use. The school supplies everything else--crayons, pencils, etc.! I could hardly believe that, when my friends said all we needed to bring was a backpack! And yes, Julia picked out the kitty backpack and Hello Kitty lunch things, herself!


Ok, some of you are wondering about this picture. Well, I just quick snapped it as we were about to leave. I want to remember how Julia was at this age: totally into pink, sparkles, and kitties! (And I couldn't see the sparkles very much in the other picture. ;))


Well, this is "why not" to wear pretty, but not completely practical, shoes! I picked Julia up after school, and she was walking slowly and oh-so-carefully to the van, that I knew her feet must be hurting. She said they had had PE today, which included running a lap around the playground and fields...! Oops... She had a blister on the back of each foot. I didn't expect them to start PE the first week, let alone the first day (seems last year they waited awhile...). She got the bandages at the doctor's office, where we went right after school. The nurse who gave them to Julia said her daughter had worn the same kind of shoes to school, and had the same problem. :) Anyway, we did not go for these blister spots,


but for a bald spot on her head. I discovered it on July 21 (which is convenient to remember, being my birthday). It is about the diameter of my pinky finger tip and has not grown more hair since then, that I can tell. The doctor said the skin looks normal, not like she has thyroid problems, or a fungus, etc. He said it looks like it is hair loss resulting from trauma to her head (skin and hair follicles??)! And not from ponytails being pulled out or her twisting her hair, as there would be uneven, broken ends around the area, which there are not. It is just surrounded by her long hair. Of course, we have absolutely no idea what "trauma" occured. Julia said, "Sometimes Austin hits me on my head...." ;) The best part is he didn't think it is anything serious. The worst part is he doesn't think hair will grow back there! :( We are glad she at least has plenty to hide the spot.

Our littlest scholar...


She was so engrossed in "reading" her books out loud. She was chattering to herself as she read them.


And just a few for fun. I did black and whites for something different.


Austin was playing with his trains while Lauren was busy reading.


Julia joined us in the family room after awhile. She said she had fun on her first day of school. She is really excited about the year, as her teacher said they will be going on ten field trips and cooking together, in the class. Julia told me I might not need to bring food for class parties anymore, if the class does all the cooking! But in talking about cooking later on, she said it was for science. I guess we'll find out... Julia said they had to do some writing today, about summer, and she wrote about going to the wave pool we went to in Canada, and drew a picture of that.