Fourth Grade!

First day of school! Tra la la! Fourth Grade, baby! Woo hoo!

Yes, the summer is over. School has begun. If you asked me what we did this summer, I wouldn't be able to come up with a good answer. I could say, "We watched a lot of shows on the Food Network!" and that would be true, but not the message I want to send. Leila couldn't go to sleep last night, too excited, and was ready to walk out the door a half hour early this morning. That wont happen again until this time next year. I miraculously remembered how to put a cheese sandwich together, and pile things into a lunch box, while slinging frozen waffles. My powers of recall are really impressive!

The whole family walked to school together, and I think the dog was a little confused that we were up before nine, AND he was getting walked. He hardly knew where to pee. His powers of recall are not nearly as impressive as mine. So what if I forgot to put the cookies in her lunch, I'm still awesome!

In fourth grade, the teacher doesn't want the parents to dangle around the classroom, helping their kid get settled. Conventional wisdom is that nine year-olds are perfectly capable of putting their back pack in their cubby and finding their name tag on their own, but that doesn't stop all of us parents from crowding into the room and "helping." For many of us, it will be our only social interaction with other adults for the rest of the day, so there is lots of hugging and lingering.

I thought I was pretty good. Rob and I went in, but we just stood there like dopes and let Leila take care of business, and then we said goodbye. We didn't stay and chat, we didn't introduce ourselves to the teacher, and I didn't touch Leila's back pack. Its a little weird to just leave your kid with a strange woman and a classroom full of kids, even if the strange woman is the teacher, and your kid is at an age where, in other countries, she'd be carrying water five miles or working in a factory or harvesting crops or whatever.

Here was the best part, though. One of the other mothers came to me and said she was so happy that she would have me as her head room parent again, and I said, "Nope, not this year. Someone else's turn." Look at me, saying no! Not succumbing to the adulation (even if its only in my head) that comes with being head room parent! I'm so excited to not do it this year, and was even more excited to not go to the first day welcome coffee where I can learn about all the exciting volunteer opportunities awaiting me, buy a sweatshirt with the school's logo, and donate money. Me and White Pants walked our dogs instead. What a refreshing change!

Don't get too excited. I'm already on the docket for the Variety Show and some other stuff, so I'll be bitching about that soon enough. In the meantime, I'm going to go to the supermarket and buy some good butter, some Benefiber, and a spray bottle. I suppose I should come up with something for dinner, too.

And thus it begins...