Big news around these parts—your niece aka my little Coywolf started third grade. Her first day was on Thursday, and I’m happy to report that she came home all smiles and excited about class and her new teacher. She’s already made a new friend and had an “epic playdate” that involved not one, not two, not three, but four cats. FOUR CATS! Side note, there’s no way that Tabs would’ve let that fly. LOL. I miss that fool cat every day.
Fingers and toes crossed that this will be a good year for her. I’m hoping for lots of positive interactions with classmates and for less girl drama.
Yup, there’s cliques and alliances already, sigh. Crazy to think that this is happening in the third grade, but perhaps it’s normal and I had no idea?
I’m curious to know what it was like for you, or for your kids if you have them, in elementary school.
In my class I remember there were the girls who were considered “the pretty girls,” but I was very unaware of social standings and wasn’t too interested in whatever was going on. I guess I was too busy trying to fade into the background and stay under the radar. Perhaps that cluelessness was one of the unknown perks of being severely under-parented and left to my own devices, ha ha ha!
Oh! When I left Connor in her classroom, I was very surprised to not be hit by that wave of emotion that usually drops after I say goodbye to her and walk away. This time, I felt pretty good, like I knew she was going to be OK and that she’d be steady enough to handle whatever would come her way
Perhaps I’m learning, slowly but surely, the inevitable task of letting her go into the world. Maybe we’re both growing up.
Now that she’s back in school and the chaos of summer camp scheduling is in my rear view mirror, I’m hoping to get back on a steady writing schedule again. I don’t know when this happened, but I desperately crave consistency, especially when it comes to everyday scheduling. The uncertainty impacts everything else, including writing. I’m hoping next month will be easier to sit down at the keyboard to babble on about lord knows what, LOL! It’s just fun to have the time to write, you know?
Happy Saturday to you!
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
Yeah! Congratulations on having a third grader! It seems like just yesterday when you posted pics of Connor as a newborn. I hope she has a good year!
Dear Husband and Dear Daughter packed up the SUV and started the drive down to San Diego this morning. She starts math camp on Monday and begins her first semester of doctoral studies at the end of September. She’s only been gone 2 and a half hours and I already miss her. Having her home for 5 days is not long enough.
I’m happy to hear that she’ll be back in California! I totally get what you’re feeling. I had Connor with me at work on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and when she started school on Thursday, my office felt lonely. It was as if I had a phantom limb.
I’m really happy she was accepted at UCSD. Before that offer came in the two schools she was considering were in Pittsburgh (and I don’t mean the one in the East Bay) and Boston. She’s thinking she’ll just catch a Southwest flight home for Thanksgiving. She missed the last three, so I’m hoping. I don’t worry about her nearly as much as I once did. But dang! I still miss her. She’s my partner in perfume and makeup crime. And weightlifting and horses and art museums…
I don’t recall any cliques in 3rd grade. I had a relatively stress-free school experience UNTIL I was forced to move to TX with my family just before 5th grade. These kids weren’t very welcoming to a newcomer (and that got even worse when I had to move in the VERY MIDDLE of the school year in 7th grade). Another thing was that ALL of them were older than me because in TX there was no free kindergarten for my generation (I was in kindergarten in California). So they just held their kids at home, often until the age of 7 (especially boys, so they could be bigger and older for football). My birthday is in November, so I was ALWAYS the youngest person in every class, often by as much as 15 months. That’s right, Texas thought it was fine if a kid couldn’t read at all until they were 7 years old. Fortunately, they eventually wised up and started offering free kindergarten for 5-year-olds (possibly forced to by the federal government). I will never know if I’d have had a decent school experience if I’d been able to stay in the same place from K-12, as my parents did. They literally never understood the hell they put all of us kids in by moving so much, especially in the middle of a school year. If I have any advice for parents, it’s this: DO NOT MAKE YOUR KID CHANGE SCHOOLS AND HOMES unless you absolutely have to!
I think cliques started for me in fourth grade, but that was also nearly 40 years ago now. I wouldn’t be surprised if it started in third now. Luckily for me, at least clique-wise, was that it didn’t last long. The district was way too small to have any real sort of cliques. Add to that, most of our parents knew each other and most of our grandparents also knew each other since it was a rural district with not a lot of moving around. My parents went to school in that district, and I also went there K-12. I agree with CL that moving, especially after 3rd grade or so, sounds like it would be really traumatizing and should only be done in dire circumstances.
She looks SO happy. Yes, the girl cliques are real, and based on what I see with my grandkids starts younger and younger. I just tell them, no matter what anyone does or says that hurts you, be kind in return even if it’s hard.
Yes…the cliques start very early. My daughter is in 5th this year and it probably started around 2nd or 3rd grade. It is like watching the mini version of Mean Girls🫤. I hate it. I try really hard to teach my kids kindness to everyone. I also explain that not everyone else has been taught to be kind…that sometimes they do not have a good role model at home.