Day One

My daughter was a little glum last night when I asked about her first day as a 7^th grader.

 

“It was sooo boring, Mom, ” she whined.

That’s not how I remembered 7^th grade.  For  me,  changing classes and dashing to your locker to get a notebook you needed while trying to wave, chew gum and make an afterschool date at the same time was thrilling, even if the school work itself wasn’t always.

“I have 8^th graders in my PE class,” my daughter noted with dissatisfaction.

“What wrong with that?”

“They’re not my friends.”

“They’ll become your friends.  You make friends easily.”

“None of my friends are in my classes.  I want my real friends.”

“They’ll be real friends. And class is about learning, not hanging out with your friends."

“Oh, nevermind,”  she said.  “Plus Global Citizenship is boring and I have that teacher twice during the day.”

I hate the word boring because it’s so…boring.  And that teacher would be Ms. Epstein.  She is smart, she is pretty and she is probably tough in the way 7^th grade teachers need to be.  (Unlike, say, 6th grade teachers).

On the plus side for the first day?  No homework and our inaugural carpool experience, which is liberating my husband and me from the daily task of getting into work late, or leaving early, to accommodate our daughter’s school schedule by ourselves.

It takes a village. 

In fact, once we get the hang of our new 7^th grade routines, I’m pretty sure we’ll all like it.  But this morning, enroute to our carpool pick up (it was my turn today) my daughter was having none of that.  She looked out the window and said, somewhat wistfully, “I wish I didn’t have to go to school today.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that she has at least 10 more years of it ahead of her.  Guess she’ll realize that at some point on her own.