Ladies and gentlemen, we have ourselves a FIFTH GRADER!
Today, Sylvie began her last and final year of school at Mark Newbie. After this year, she will head to middle school. It’s going to be a big, busy time for our family!
Sylvie’s teacher this year is Mrs. Markulic, the very cool leader of D&D club, a former Irish dancer, and an all-around kindred spirit. She gave out corgi stickers on day one – this is our kind of person!
Sylvie will switch from Irish dancing to ballet this fall. We’re excited to have found a local studio that’s offering a tween class for girls just like her, who have some experience dancing but need to work on ballet basics and terminology. Her first class is next week; she has not and will not stop talking about it.
She is also going back to School of Rock after a season off for piano lessons in town. At school, she’ll return to the cello, which she started as a 4th grader last year. She’s a singer and dancer who wants to learn to play the guitar and she has basically always written stories and songs, even in her sleep. She makes up words and puns and jokes. She watches people closely and understands them, is inevitably kind to them, in ways that I’m sure are deep inside of her, because we certainly didn’t teach them. I can’t wait to see where her heart and her creativity take her.
And now we have some cute side-by-side pictures of back-to-school signs! Remember when this kid was just a teeny kindergartener? Pre-pandemic up at Parkview Elementary?? When she loved broccoli and didn’t really ever want to smile for pictures? (Unless, of course, Simon was involved.)
These kiddos are really going places.
Meanwhile, little bro Simon started the fourth grade today, with the same teacher Sylvie had last year, Mrs. DeAmicis. He’s going to start playing the saxophone at school this year, and he’ll play Collingswood Rec Soccer like he did in the spring. By winter he may return to roller hockey or try something new, like karate. He had on three shirts this morning and he was careful to show both his “school” shirt and his Mark Newbie tee under his sweater for our photos. He will wear a different pair of his new shoes each day into next week – we bought him a few, because he plays hard and wears holes in them quickly, and the last pair he’ll debut are hot pink kicks he’s proud to have chosen. I’m proud of how little he cares what other people think.
We haven’t made back-to-school signs every year, but if we had, I’m confident that Simon’s would have said some of the same things year after year. He wants to be a dog trainer when he grows up, his favorite color is almost always pink or brown, and, every time we check, he’s tall, athletic, creative, and as sweet as chocolate peanut butter ice cream with Reese’s peanut butter cups mixed in, hot fudge and whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles on top.
(Remy didn’t get to make a sign for his first day back to work for this year, but, rest assured, he did an excellent job of greeting the crossing guard, hugging new and old friends, and keeping us all on time for dropoff and pickup. What a pro.)
We wish all of our friends and family a great year back at school!
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