Ch-ch-ch-changes

Well, it August and change is a-foot. As we've known for quite a while, Jen has several weeks off before officially starting her new career at the end of August. I'm continuing to adjust to my role of at-home parent. Elaine is doing new things each day and Meredith finds new ways of being a good big sister.

Recently added to the mix is that we've decided to switch Meredith's preschool recently. Yesterday was her last day at her preschool. She's been there for about 15 months and it has been a fairly positive experience for her. She's had great teachers and they have an engaging preschool curriculum. It was her last day of preschool soccer too, which she has really enjoyed (especially when she gets to "kick the ball and make it go past our coach and into the net"). Since we were only able to prepare Meredith for this change over the two previous days, the finality of it was a bit surreal to her (and her parents) and it didn't quite seem to sink in. Adding to the confusion is that she won't be starting her new preschool until after our two trips at the end of this month. Last night at bedtime Meredith asked if she was going to get to go back to her old preschool and cried a little bit when she realized she was done. We anticipate a few more moments like that one in the coming days.

Meredith's new school is the International School of Minnesota. It's a preschool through 12th grade institution out in the suburbs. It takes us about 23 minutes to drive there. It seems like a fun and supportive environment where learning is valued. They have a swimming pool on-site where they do swimming lessons, they do foreign language instruction daily (French or Spanish), and lots of other fun activities. The cost is about the same as her previous preschool. And if we keep her there for kindergarten and beyond, it's one of the more affordable private schools in the Twin Cities. It's also one of the few private schools in the Twin Cities that allows earlier admission to kindergarten for Meredith's September 9th birthday. While most public schools have a process for "early admission" for kids with birthdays after the September 1st cut-off, most of the private schools around here have an absolute age cut-off with no exceptions. So Meredith would be able start kindergarten next year.

Meredith has visited the school twice and likes it. She'll be starting the last week of August and doing half-days (mornings) five days a week. Having made this switch just a few weeks ahead, we now have to get all the school preparations done in a short time, keeping in mind we'll be out of the state for about 2.5 weeks in the mean time. One thing we're trying to wrap our heads around is that the school has uniforms and we have to now obtain a new ward-robe for Meredith. (The uniforms are pretty cute though.)