First Day Jitters

Yesterday was a rough day around our house. Sabi was having a terrible time. At first I thought that she was suffering from a party hangover - too much fun and not enough rest. Then I thought that she was truly sick because she was complaining of being warm and having a headache. Then she got downright rude and difficult to be around. I was at a loss as to what was wrong with her. I ended up having to send her to bed and raisemy voice with her a bit. It was awful. Around 8:00 or so, I ended up trying once again to talk things out with Sabina. I had to figure out what in the world was going on. I definitely didn't want to send her to her first day of school with a bad attitude and a chip on her shoulder.

After a lot of coaxing I got to the heart of the problem. Sabi was VERY anxious about her first day of school. As soon as she told me this it was like the floodgates had opened and she went on and on about what was worrying her. She was worried about not knowing her multiplication facts, not knowing cursive and most of all that kids in third grade would get sent to the principal without a warning if they break the rules. She was also a bit worried about the fact that her teacher would be too hard on her and the rest of her schoolmates since she just came to third grade from teaching sixth grade. (Little did she know that the teacher had taught third grade for many years prior to her short time in sixth!) Anyway, once Sabi got all of the worries out, she was able to relax and start to think about the good things that she was looking forward to. This morning, all of the stress was gone and she woke up on a happy note and was eager to go back to school and see all of her friends.

All day today I had Sabi on my mind. I was wondering how her day went. I couldn't wait to see her after school was over and ask her how things went. The first thing I asked her when I saw her was "How was your day?" She simply responded "ok." I needed more information so I continued "What did you do today?" She responded with the classic "nothing." I sighed and knew that everything had to have gone well. As the evening progressed, Sabi started giving me little snapshots of how the day had been as she thought of the exciting things that she did. The last comment that she made about school was "I think that third grade is going to be cool because my teacher is really nice!"

Thank goodness!!!