What The Day Brought
I’m not sure who was more exicted this morning on the walk to school–The newly minted third grader or her mommy. Sabrina skipped along the side of the road, happy to be returning to school and speculating about the day ahead–who would her teacher be, which kids would be in her class, how many As would she get? We also reviewed some friendship ground rules: Friends are people who like you and want to spend time with you. You cannot force this on people. If someone doesn’t want to play with you, instead of getting upset or chasing her, you should just find someone else to hang out with.
While Sabrina might not have good friends on the playground, I do. And after a long summer spent mostly away from home, I realized that I could hardly wait to reconnect with them. It was a bittersweet, though; as I rounded the parking lot it hit me: many mothers would be waiting inside the gates, but Susan would not. Remembering that, and how much I always looked forward to her smiling face and down to earth take on life–an island of serene calm in the schoolyard chaos–made me miss her all over again. Sabrina also missed Emmett, who for better and worse has been her constant playground companion since kindergarten, but in the end the excitment of old friends and a new classroom proved to be successful distractions for both of us.
She got “The New Guy, ” which means that for the first time ever, Diva Girl will have a male teacher. I’m kinda excited about that. (Get your minds out of the gutter! Not that way! Besides, he’s probably married.) Not that I think that, with her 4 uncles and very active and involved grandfather, Sabrina is lacking in positive male role models, but I think this could be a very positive thing for my emotional, complicated little girl. Judging by the way she bounded out of class at the end of the day, and how often I was treated to insights about life according to Mr. G, I think Sabrina’s feeling pretty good about it too.
More than the “gotcha” system or the presence of Rainbow Magic books in the classroom library, the big news of the day was they got agendas! This is a VERY! BIG! DEAL! apparently. We’ll see how excited she is about it when I’m signing her homework.
Finally, Heather, the Queen Bee who spent last year making it her personal mission to torment Sabrina, is in her class. I wasn’t pleased about that, but I decided to use it as a teachable moment. Instead of allowing her dismiss this girl outright, I went against every maternal instinct I had and encouraged Sabrina to give her chance to prove herself. Partly I was hoping that Heather had matured over the summer (and that without her chief minion, who moved at the end of last year, she’d be far more willing to play nicely). Partly I just didn’t want to teach my 7 year old to be so cynical that she would reject a genuine offer of friendship. Imagine how thrilled I was when, nearly as exciting as the agenda, was the news that Heather said she might be Sabrina’s friend. If she’s not too busy with every other girl in the class.