First Day of School

It's the most wonderful time of the year! That's right, school starting! And the angels all sang the Hallelujah Chorus, and the world was happy. At least this mom was happy. The boys started back to school today, and they were both excited and nervous. They were going to a magnet school this year - last year was a pretty rough year what with a 6 year old bringing a gun to school in Sam's class, Levi being bullied and abandoned by his one friend, and Sam going through three different teachers. And that was all at our neighborhood school. So we decided to send them to a magnet school in the bad part of town - sounds reasonable, right? But we visited the school, and we were very impressed. The kids all seemed happy, and they do so many neat things like produce a television show for their morning announcements, and learn how to do all sorts of technology things, and there was also a lot of positive incentives that was sorely lacking at our old school. But anyway, I'm not sure who was more nervous today - Levi or me? Bless his heart, if I could've gone in there and made friends for him, I sure would have. I've been praying for weeks now, "Please, God, please - just one good friend, that's all I ask. Just one good friend." I mean, who wouldn't want to be friends with this kid?

He exudes coolness. I mean, peace and Tech, what else could you ask for?

Thankfully, he got into the car this afternoon and announced that he had 2 1/2 friends. That is 1 1/2 more than he ever had last year. And there was a good part of the year where he had none. He did some complaining about the teachers being mean, but I have heard that the teachers are really good, so I tried to encourage him that all teachers are mean on the first day. He said he was also confused a lot. This is the first year for him to switch classes, and so he's got to get used to that. He just likes to know exactly what's coming and what to expect, so that will come with time. This is the child who wakes up every morning and wants to know exactly what is planned for each minute of the day. And he's asking me...the person who would rather not have a plan at all. When we went to Meet the Teacher, they were talking about a math game that they needed to play at home on the computer every week, and he started to freak out! What is this Math Mania? What if you won't let me on the computer? I swear I could see his heart rate rise, and his pulse start to race. Chill out, dude. We'll figure it all out. No worries. To which he replied, no comprende.

Then, on the other hand, we've got this dude:

Who was absolutely fired up to be the new kid in school, who revelled in any extra attention that might come his way, who when school was over, he wasn't sure exactly where I was supposed to pick him up, so he just started walking in the neighborhood (luckily I found him before he got too far!) while his responsible older brother was stressed out and worried that he couldn't find him, asking all the teachers where Sam was. Not a care in the world. He struggled with reading last year, but told me his new teacher told him he was a perfect reader. His teacher is cousins with London from Suite Life with Zach & Cody (if you have never seen it, count yourself lucky!) and London always says, "Yay me!" in the show. So when Sam had to write a paper about his first day at school, he wrote at the end, "Yay, Miss Xiong!" "Do you think she got it?" he asked me. He was so proud of himself for thinking of it.

So, in closing, I think this was a pretty successful day. I won't stop praying, but I feel much better. There is a lot of guilt that goes with moving your child around and taking him away from the only friends he's ever known, especially when last year was so bad. My main prayer is that someday he will be able to look back and say that the moving around helped him to become a more well-adjusted person and not a crazy old recluse who lives in a shack by himself and yells at kids to stay off his lawn.

Here is one more picture of both of them:

And, yes, they wear uniforms at their new school, which I am very excited about! And after supper tonight we went on a bike ride, and just watching them ride their bikes in the khaki pants and polos and bike helmets, I said, "Look! They look like miniature Mormons!"