Transitioning to a New School, and Other Natural Disasters

The honeymoon period is officially over. What had been as a heady love affair ended officially yesterday morning in a dramatic and public display. And it came out of no where. The perfection of the relationship had lulled me into a false sense of security. I had no idea what I was in for.

Ugh.

The first week at the boys new school was off the chain! I really believed that transitioning them from Montessori to the local (excellent by any standard, I feel compelled to add) elementary school had been a rip-roaring success. The boys told me they loved it, their teachers were communicative and seemed to have a handle on the whole transition situation. And for my first grader this is still holding true. But for my third grader the wheels came off the bus yesterday morning. And really it is my own fault. I knew this day was coming. I just wanted to believe that by some miracle I’d dodge the bullet.

My third grader is what I euphemistically call my “high-spirited” child. His medical diagnoses is ADHD. Which I struggled with forever and you can read about ad nauseum in previous blog posts. So I won’t bore you with the details now. Suffice to say the first thing anyone says to me about Jack is “he’s so smart” right before they drop the hammer like “but boy can he be difficult.” I’m seriously contemplating having business cards made up for him that he can pass out to adults that read: “Jack Corning, Evil Genius, Consider Yourself Warned.”

So you see, I knew in my heart it was a matter of time until Jack’s evil genius ways reared their ugly head. It took one week and one day exactly for the rearing to commence. Yes, this is happening.

Oh, and just to really make things interesting my brand new iPhone died. Who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor?

The festivities began at exactly 11am yesterday. I know the exact time because I was walking into a meeting with a client at their office when my iPad pinged me with a message from my admin that stated: The principal from your kids school called. She needs to talk to u about an incident. She said its NOT an emergency. Call her back at XXX-XXX-XXXX. Did I mention that my client doesn’t have children? And that my phone was dead? And that I didn’t have Xanax or wine in my purse?

Luckily my client turns out to be a saint who not only didn’t roll her eyes and ask me to leave when I explained the situation, but let me use her office phone and was incredibly gracious all around. First bullet dodged. When I get the principal on the phone she is calm, cool, collected and starts off by saying how smart Jack is. Uh-oh, it must be bad. She then tells me why my son is in her office. Evidently, when his teacher told the class it was time for a spelling test Jack told her he didn’t want to take it. When she pressed him he got up from his desk and proceeded to run around the room and hide. That earned him his first trip the principal’s office. After the principal calmed him down, she walked him back to is classroom where everyone was lining up to head to a different activity. Jack refused to lineup and earned his second trip to the principal’s office, which is when she called me. I talked with Jack and promised if he got it together, returned to his classroom, apologized to his teacher, and behaved the rest of the day that we’d go see the new Percy Jackson movie he’s been begging me to take him to. He agreed. I felt triumphant in my negotiating and child rearing skills.

Until I emailed with his teacher in the afternoon.

She informed me that he did make it back to class but then he was rude to her when he didn’t do well on a test and then proceeded to have a crying meltdown when they couldn’t go out for recess because of a heat advisory. Dear God in Heaven. Did she say he was rude to her? Total cringe worthy parenting moment.

Oh Sister Henrietta, my elementary school teacher, where are you and your ruler when I need you most? Dear dad, where is the leather belt you used for insolent child beat downs of my childhood past? Since corporal punishment is totally passé and, you know, illegal, his father and I had to resort to talking it through with him this morning and creating a new set of rules and consequences. Still think some alone time with Sister Henrietta would have been more effective but I’m willing to try this new fangled responsible parenting thing.

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