First day of school!

Yesterday was the kids first day of school. Alexa goes to the "maternelle" or preschool, and Alana goes to "primaire", the primary school. The two schools are right across the street from each other, and about a 15 minute walk from our apartment. The school schedule is very different here. They go from 8:30-11:30, then home for lunch, then go back from 1:30-4:30. You can choose to have your child pay to eat lunch at school, then they are there all day. Also, there is no school on Wednesdays.
Alana's first day was a great success! She loves her teacher, made some friends in her class, and practiced the alphabet and days of the week. She is very excited to go back tomorrow.
Alexa's first day, on the other hand, was a bit more emotional. Surprisingly her drop off went very well. There were lots of crying kids, but she was ok. We reminded her that we would be back soon and we would all have lunch together. However when we picked her up at 11:30, she was crying. The teacher said she did well and only started crying about 10 minutes before we arrived. At lunch she said she did not want to return to school. We managed to bribe her with a trip to the pastry shop and a bus ride downtown to the carousel after school. So again she did ok on the afternoon drop off, with visions of chocolate in her head. But, at 4:30 pick up she was crying. Again, the teacher said she had a good afternoon, took a nap, and only started crying about 10 minutes before we arrived. I suspect this "10 minutes" thing is what they tell all parents! I think she may have been crying longer...
So of course off to the patisserie we went! The girls chose chocolates in the shape of little pigs, and we hopped on the bus to go to the carousel!
Paul and I enjoyed our first free morning, and walked around our neighborhood and enjoyed some espresso at a cafe. It was our 8th wedding anniversary, but we don't yet have a sitter, so we decided to postpone our nice anniversary dinner!
Alexa tells me today she is ready to go back to school tomorrow - so I'm keeping my fingers crossed - there may be lots of chocolate pigs in our future!