Holy cow, she's growing up fast...!
I (obviously) took a little time off from blogging after completing my "ten years ago today" retrospective, and have been working on just plain ol' catching up... You know, trying to figure out what's taken up residence under the bed, tossing out all those AT&T long distance bills from 1988, and helping AJ & Miri figure out what school supplies were needed vs. already on hand but not really wanted vs. already here and OK to use... while trying to figure out if/how/when/where Miri would actually be attending school.
But not just any school -- he's in middle school now (grades 6-7-8), with her career as an elementary school "little kid" behind her. That fact has been boggling the minds of the entire family for about a month now, but as for the Pipsqueak... Well...
My niece has always been one to worry about change, and about doing well, and about not making a mistake in her schoolwork. (Witness one of the math practice sessions with Yours Truly over the summer, when we were going over some equations: I asked, "What operation do you need here?" and after a long, pregnant silence, Miri replied with a long, drawn-out, whispered, "muuuultiplicaaaaation...?" in a steadily rising tone. When I laughed and said it was okay to say it out loud and that if she got it wrong it was all just part of the learning process, she started laughing and admitted that she just was worried about giving me the wrong answer and proceeded to solve the problem correctly. And then did the same kind of thing with the next problem... and the one after that... and the one after that... and... <sigh>)
Well, if ya puts all that into a jar an' screws the lid on tight and shakes it to see if they'll fight... They does.
Miri mentioned middle school once or twice during the third quarter of 5th grade, and then moved on to mentioning it once or twice a week, and then to mentioning it on (at least) a daily basis. I place part of this squarely at the feet of one of her teachers who seemed to really enjoy psyching out his students when it came to information about moving forward through the school system, but the majority was just the Pipsqueak's concerns bubbling to the top. The mentions became questions, and then the questions became discussions, and soon we all lost count of how many times we'd had to tell the poor kid that...
1) She had been in school most of her life by this point, and middle school was just that: school;
2) She already knew a big chunk of the kids who were going to the new school, and that meeting new people there was no different than meeting new people at the beginning of each season at the dance studio;
3) Her concerns about not being any good in math didn't jive with her getting STRAIGHT A's last year (yes, I'm kvelling again);
4) We had her back and would be more than happy to help her out, and that everything we'd heard about the faculty at the middle school was positive; and
5) School was going to be virtual at least through the end of the year so she was going to be at home for classes anyway.
What we were saying (and there's plenty more where the above came from!) seemed to slowly seep into Miri's head, but she was still obviously worried as the first day of school got closer... and closer... and then omigoshschoolstartsTODAY!
For a variety of reasons (mostly concerns about technical "what ifs" and Yours Truly being the family's User Support Department for anything tech-related), Miri spent her first day of school working at my dining room table. AJ took the classic "first day of school" photo (to the left) in their driveway, then brought her over to my house. Bleary-eyed, I opened the door only to have Miri come flying in because she was sure that all the bugs in my neighborhood were about to attack her (she is frequently chomped on by an amazing variety of flying insects; they seem to find her tastier than average). There was the usual "Good morning can I have an English muffin with cheese for breakfast thank you I love you where do I put my Chromebook thanks" and she began plugging in the assorted devices that she was lugging around in her backpack. (When full, that backpack actually weighs almost as much as she does; none of us are looking forward to the local kids' physical return to school because they've already been told "no lockers" so they'll have to lug the full loads around school with them.)
I sat nearby, just doing some of my own work on my laptop while keeping half an ear tuned to what was happening in each class. (I wasn't eavesdropping or spying; Miri herself had asked that I listen in to make sure she didn't miss anything important and to help ASAP if any technical problems cropped up.) The first day was a modified schedule with all classes meeting for a short time -- normally there would only be 4 of the 8 classes on a single day -- and by lunchtime the Pipsqueak had to admit that it looked like all her worrying had been for nothing. The trend continued through the rest of the day, with Miri paying close attention (and discovering too late she'd forgotten to charge the cordless headphones I'd gotten her so she had to plug everything in), becoming happier and more relaxed by the minute.
Finally, school was done for the day and my niece teleported herself to the living room sofa and began a Zoom session with a bunch of her friends on her iPad. (On & off during school, the iPad had lit up repeatedly with other kids texting in the middle of class. Miri was a champ, ignoring all the texts until the lunch break -- she even complained that it was "rude" for some of the kids to "spam" her with multiple texts while they were all supposed to be in class.) I admit that I laughed out loud -- and got a dirty look that quickly turned to laughter -- when I heard her tell her friends, "I was scared of middle school for nothing! School is fun!"
So here we go, with that scrawny little toddler you all saw in my ten-year retrospective now attending middle school and asking for help with homework that's pushing the limits of my own memory & education. Wow, that decade went by fast...!
Oh, and a little bonus... Despite all the drawbacks to having an entire county's worth of kids staying at home for school, there are still some "learning moments" well worth the disruption. Sometimes they involve school, sometimes they involve personal habits...
...and sometimes they're just a way cool close view of the world around us. (These are actually from a couple of days before school started, but Miri was here reading on my couch when I sensed motion out of the corner of my eye.)
The little fella on the left actually spent almost a minute just watching us watch him, then happily chowed down on the saplings in those pots (OK by me, they kinda planted themselves in pots I wasn't using and there are already trees aplenty back there). He wandered back & forth in the yard, daintily sampling various green things, then was joined by Mama and a sibling(?) in the shade about 20 feet away. Sure beats looking at photos in a book during science class!
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