There's no way it's September already!

It's only 20 minutes into September, but seriously, where has the time gone?

The kids (and me) survived the first week of school!!! Yeah us! It was a week filled with adventure and fraught with peril - okay not really any peril, it just sounded better than fraught with anxiety!

Jared absolutely loves school. He got an older, straight forward, no nonsense kind of teacher. Which works for him - he just goes with the flow - and he was more interested in making friends, than what teacher he got. I just didn't want him in the combo class. There are 2 teachers at his school who teach together in one big room with 54 students - chaos, and hello, do you have any idea who my child is? No thank you.

He was so cute - the first day he came home and kept telling me all about this African-American boy in his class that was cool. And he kept referring to him as the African American boy - so I suggested perhaps he find out the boy's name, so he could start referring to him as such. It's so weird that my kids see so little cultural diversity (that's what we've started calling it here) here in Utah, that they use it to describe someone. Back in San Diego, we were the minority in our 'hood. And I'd never heard Jared use the term African-American before. He wouldn't have thought of needing to differentiate some one that way. Anyway, he did find out his name, and they sit next to each other in class and hang at recess. And there was also "really good at tether ball" boy. I think by the end of the week, he'd finally learned his name too!

Rachel is loving school school too, for the most part. She got THE teacher. The really fun, great teacher that all the girls from church wanted, and only she got!! Okay, after back to school night, I wanted to be in her class! Rach was so shy when I dropped her at the class on the first day. And the teacher took her right over to a table of girls, and introduced her, and told them Rachel was new to their school, and would they please show her how things were done there. And she draws names for who sits together at lunch, which eliminated any problems of who to sit with. She's made some new friends which really is what it's all about - that and the clothes!

It's all been good, except for the second day, when the teacher showed them where the key was kept to lock the doors in case of an intruder at the school. After which, kids had to tell stories they'd heard - poor Rach, she couldn't sleep that night, and she was done with school! She'd thought that school was a safe place - but not anymore! After many explanations and reassurances (more of a chance of something bad happening at our old house than at this school) she's back in the saddle, and it's all good!

For Connor, it's been interesting. The only class he loves is Seminary. He thinks his English teacher is weird (more on that in a minute), his math teacher is okay, his science teacher is not just strict, she's mean! Middle school - or Jr. High as it is called here (I just got used to saying middle school - I'm sooo confused) sucks big time - no matter what. I think it's sole purpose for existing is to suck and make students miserable! He's taking the rest of his classes through the electronic (or online) high school - which is cool. He's taking digital photography and geography there. Actually - I dropped him from the science class - she really was mean, and after chatting with other parents at Pack Meeting - it wasn't going to get any better. And science is his thing - so I didn't want someone sucking all the joy out of something he loves and making him hate it as I have seen happen before. So he's now doing that class online too, and he's now taking computer keyboarding at school. He's actually adjusting okay, considering.

So back to this English teacher. She's the total opposite of Connor - she's very young, hip, now kind of person. For their first assignment, they had to pick a song that expresses them. Poor Connor - he's all hymns and classical - and it had to have lyrics. They had to bring the song to school, play it in front of the class and tell about it. I'm sure most kids thought it was cool (I did!), but not Connor. He really wanted to do a hymn - and I'm worried about the whole "geek - let's make fun of you" factor vs. the "let him be proud of who he is". I tried to help him find a contemporary song that would work, but in the end, he took "Song of Testimony" by Janice Kapp Perry - I know, just give them a pass to torment him - but it's what he wanted - it is who he is - he said no one gave him a hard time - (yet!). He told me some kid did "White and Nerdy" by Weird Al - if only we'd thought of it!!

So all, in all, we survived!