This is the Best Day Ever*

If any of you are familiar with Spongebob Squarepants then you have heard the above phrase which is one of his favorite sayings. He uses it often when things are going, well, not quite the way he might have liked them to go.

Today was my regular volunteer day at the Media Center at the angelbaby's school. I have been volunteering there for going on three years now and the Media specialist and I are great friends and work really well together. Somehow the last two years my regular day happens to coincide with her busiest day --meaning she has class after class of little kids coming through all day long. I found out today that last year it was just a fluke, but this year she engineered the schedule to work out that way by alerting the teachers to consider choosing Thursday as their Library day because I would be there to assist her.

Thanks a lot! It isn't that I don't like kids, it's just that I don't like kids around when I am trying to get work done. We seem to have three of the most rambunctious classes back to back this year and when I am not playing "time-out monitor" for the kids that she has had to eject from the story room for being too obnoxious to sit through the 20 minute story I am answering the same question for the fifteenth time. "No we don't have anymore Diary of Wimpy Kid books", "You have to bring back the book you checked out last week before you can get a book out this week", "You are only allowed to get one (Where's Waldo/Magazine/I Spy) book out at a time." "Do you mean to tell me that you are in third grade and you still don't know your lunch number?"

Now to be honest I didn't actually say that last one out loud but I have to admit that I did think it.

So, thanks to my wonderful "boss" we have a busy busy day filled with one group of unruly kids after another all day long and I try very hard to keep as upbeat as possible all day. I actually find that when the going gets really tough it really does help to stop and say, in my best imitation of Spongebob "This is the best day ever!" and then eat a nice piece of chocolate.

Because it would be just wrong to sniff glue or drink alcohol at school now wouldn't it?

Even so, I keep going back week after week, because as tormenting as the kids are, I really do like the Librarian, and I like the work I am doing there to help her make her Media Center something of which she can be very proud.

It also reminds me why I never was called to become an elementary school teacher. I would have either killed some poor kid or be locked up in the loony bin within a month. God is good.

Pax

That Serenity Thing Really Works!

The angelbaby came home from school very happy with her new teachers (all three of them because they are departmentalized so she has not just the one, for homeroom and English, but the other two for Social Studies and Math). She loves her classmates and has "bonded with six or seven girls in her class" (her words, how cute is that?)

She loves, loves, loves everything about being in the sixth grade! Except the fact that because I drove her to school this morning, and for some odd reason they chose this year to change the bus route that has picked up our kids for the ten years we have lived in this house she couldn't remember the number of the new bus she was supposed to ride home. Somehow she thought I should remember and called me on my cell phone when she knew that I was in orientation at the community college where the two older sisters (three actually but one is a returning student) are starting classes in two weeks. I told her she needed to go to the office, surely someone there knew which bus she was supposed to ride home, one would think.

She made it home safely, and has her bus number tattooed on her hand in red sharpie for the rest of the week, (just in case). I think I will let it stay there and have her wash it off on Saturday night so that she isn't wearing it on her hand for Mass on Sunday, but if it makes her feel safer for the rest of the week, what can it hurt?

I'm just glad that she is happy. Things are turning out pretty good for everyone around here, so far. God grant me . . .

Pax

The Sadness of the First Day

Today the angelbaby begins her first day of her last year in elementary school. She is both excited and sad. She doesn't get to have the teacher she wanted, and her best friend in the whole world (you know how those things are with twelve-year olds is in another class altogether. In fact, none of her friends are in her class, or so she said after we took a look at the class lists yesterday.

And to make things worse, there is the whole thing about not getting to have the teacher she really wanted. Who she got was a teacher that has been at the school, not one of the two new teachers they brought in to replace the two they transferred. She has somehow built up in her mind that she isn't going to like this teacher, and she doesn't even really know her.

So, on the way back from school yesterday I talked to her about expectations, and how our world usually lives up to what we expect of it. If we expect that we are going to have a great year; meet new friends, love our teacher, and in general enjoy school that usually happens. If we expect that we are going to hate school, hate our teacher and have no friends in class, that might happen too. I also taught her about what we can and cannot control and how to say The Serenity Prayer I wanted her to know that I wasn't about to go in and make them change her class just because she needed to be with her best friend. I think she needs to give this teacher a chance because I know this teacher, and I personally think this teacher might be a good fit.

This parenting stuff is never a picnic.

I will be praying a few of my own prayers today as I drop her off for her first day. How did my baby get to be in sixth grade? It seems like yesterday I was taking her to her first day of pre-school.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change . . .

Pax

Tragedy Has Struck (Stricken?)

The angelbaby found out the most devastating news of her short life today . . . her favorite teacher; the one she has waited twelve long years to get to have (her older siblings all had him, even son and heir had him the year she was born, so she has known him her whole life) has been transferred to another Elementary School effective this School Year! This isn't some idle rumor either, we got it right from his own mouth when we saw him at the Farmer's Market this morning.

She is practically in mourning. She has built up for her entire time at her school how great it will be to finally be in his class this year that she can't possibly imagine what it will be like to have to endure another teacher for the year. I have been telling her that she will still have all of her friends there, and she will still be in sixth grade and we all know that sixth graders rule the school. Nothing seems to help.

I am at a loss as to how to make this better for her. I know that Wednesday when she gets to school, no matter who her teacher is everything will work out, but somehow this has come as a real shock to her system.

I despise the fact that the only thing I can tell her is that life just isn't fair, and then you die. I have been trying to help her realize that perhaps she will be surprised and she will have a teacher that she likes even better than she would have if she had had Mr Love (I am not making that up, that really is his last name.)

So, this school year will have more surprises than I ever expected.

Pax