First Day of School 2008

“Middle school is not as scary as I thought it would be,” our granddaughter answered the question of how her first day went. She was a chatterbox all evening and even sang and danced around a bit. So I think it was a successful day. She had most of her classes with an old friend and all but one of her classes with a brand new friend. Friends are so important. I pray she will be surrounded by kids who will have a healthy influence on her. As I waited on her on the greenbelt after school (yep, I managed to embarrass her right away on the first day) I heard children using such vulgar language as they passed by without any care at all that there was an adult within hearing distance. It’s so common these days. I was at the urgent care clinic on Sunday with my three year old granddaughter. A girl that I would guess to be around 14 or 15 years old was sitting with her mother and was cussing up a storm. I was very close to asking her to please watch her mouth in front of my granddaughter when they called me back to see the doctor. I have well learned my lessons on criticizing and blaming parents for the behavior of their children but, at the threat of sounding judgmental, I sure think it would be a great idea to at least attempt to clean up some of the trash mouth that abounds. Of course, that would mean that the adults would have to work on it a bit themselves. I’m far from innocent in this matter but, as my grandson would say, “C’mon!” Sorry, I digressed. Here’s a picture of her before school on the same greenbelt.

Speaking of our grandson, I’ll get back on track and say that he was equally as enthused about his first day. He likes his teacher, who is new to the school this year. He also has a good friend who goes to our church in his class as well as a girl from his class last year with whom he seems to be quite smitten. He is radiantly happy about his battery operated pencil sharpener. The teacher is graciously allowing him to keep it at school as long as he doesn’t pass it around and only uses it in the morning before they start working. We’ll see how long that lasts. I’m trying to pump up the idea of responsibility, now that he’s growing up and in third grade. I sure hope this will be a good learning experience, as opposed to a difficult one. He loves that pencil sharpener! Here’s a picture I took of him on the first day of school. Have I mentioned before that he hates to have his picture taken?