With the first day of school being pushed back 3 weeks and all the new Covid-19 procedures in place, our district did a simulation day, or a practice run the week before school. It was just a half day but it was good for all three Kikuchi girls. Because not only are Keagan and Riley entering a whole new world with just a handful of friends from church and theater and an all new environment. But this is the first time since kindergarten that I haven’t worked at whatever school the girls were going to. So this has been a HUGE adjustment for all of us! For the girls the simulation day was great to meet a few teachers, be in the building, find some of their classes, see some old friends and start to make new ones. For me it was a good test run to drop the girls off and not be able to do anything but pray my guts out and trust these incredible girls of mine. Success that day did show us all that we were as ready as we were going to be!
And we were ready! We had all we needed, we got our priesthood blessings, prayed our guts out, checked our schedules and friends schedules and decided our family theme for the year. Beautiful girl you can do hard things! A good theme to learn now!
Riley was a little nervous but SUPER excited. Keagan was just thrilled to finally be going back to school until the morning of when she got SUPER nervous. They looked darling of course and were armed with The Spirit and a whole lot of love! I cried just briefly after dropping them off and then went to work to worry and miss them. By lunch time I got the sweetest email from Keagan saying “we are at lunch I am doing really great!” What a massive blessing that I have a Klein ISD email address so she can email me whenever she wants and does so almost daily! When I finally picked them up from school Riley said it was totally amazing and made new friends! Keagan said the day was a 9 out of 10! Then we came home to huge balloon bouquets from the sweetest neighbors in the world, Mrs Roxanne and Mr Jim!
Over the last three weeks things have gone well. Keagan did have a disappointing incident with a mean girl she has known for years which was unfortunate but she bounced back and has already made tons of new friends! She has great stories everyday, has old and/or new friends in all her classes, really likes all but one of her teachers including her social studies teacher who used to do marketing for Hamilton the musical! Gasp! She is loving playing the flute in the band and was SO thrilled to bring it home yesterday (we are renting it) to show us how she plays her first note. She is glad to finally this week be able to sit with whoever she wants at lunch and reunite with Calli and other church/theater friends. She emails her close friends all through out the day but has also kept up with all her homework and got good grades on the assignments so far.
Riley is thrilled everyday to go to school! She giggles about it because she loves it so much! There is only 5 kids in her class and she has made new friends with Griffin, Alexis and Nick. I know she misses her old friends a lot but she says she likes Doerre better then Mahaffey now. They rotate classes between the 3developmental teachers who I really like so far. On Friday she finally got her PE clothes and as soon as she came home she wanted to put them straight on and wear them all weekend! They are the smallest size they have but totally huge on her of course as the nurse says Riley is the smallest student they have ever had! It was a serious struggle to get them off so I could wash them! She wore them to school yesterday but her teacher actually made her change as they are only for PE. I feel like she is really being well taken care of as Nurse Chilton has been in very close contact with lots of great questions. And I have been beyond impressed with the principal Mrs Land who has been personally feeding Riley lunch as they are down some paras in her class right now. Mrs Land also emailed me Friday night to follow up and check and see how Keagan is feeling with her lock on her locker after she had helped her earlier in the day.
I am overall very happy with the girls being at Doerre, happy with all their teachers who I have been in communication with all of them in one way or the other, happy that the girls are making new friends and seeing old friends everyday, and frankly happy that I was given a Doerre parking pass and can drop off and pick up the girls at the cafeteria doors like the buses do and avoid the long carpool line all together! I am happy they are able to be going in person too. They don’t mind the masks all day and plexi-glass dividers at lunch because they are resilient and happy to be there. Riley does go thru about 4-6 masks a day because of her drooling but I’m so proud of her for doing it! I made the right choice with help from Heavenly Father to send them there and all though I know it’s not going to be even near perfect, so far it has been great! And that is worth celebrating!
So what better way to celebrate then with a fun back to school party with a bunch of friends the first Saturday after school started! Oh gosh it was a little crazy at our house with Claire, Calli R, Callie M, Sydney, Lexie, Zoie, Bia, Kaylee, Keagan and Riley. We started off with a shaving cream fight in the driveway! 10 girls and 30 cans of shaving cream brings a ridiculous party y’all! They definitely all had one heck of a time! After all that fun, getting sprayed off, dried off and changed, we made banana splits and played a game to have some interesting utensils to eat with! Getting middle school girls to eat ice cream with a whisk, tongs, spatula or the like is even more fun then it sounds! Then the girls finished by playing murder in the dark to wrap up a fantastic party and a great first week of school!
Hopefully the next three years will go as good or even better then the last three weeks have gone at Doerre! Prayers and finger ms crossed for the amazing Keagan and Riley, my warriors.
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