Back at It

“I AM SO NERVOUS!”

I hadn’t anticipated that reaction when Puck walked out to breakfast at 6:30 that morning. Neither did I expect:

“I’m too nervous to eat.”

This was serious.

Over an hour later on the road to school, some of Puck’s nerves had been channeled into head-bobbing to “What Does the Fox Say”. And by the time I deposited him in the gym for the very first day of Fourth Grade, I think he was relatively calmed.

Around 11:45 I was in the school lunch room passing out Bomb Pops to all the kids who had ordered lunch. Puck sat with his buddies and a peanut butter sandwich.

“You’d better finish that,” I told him. “I worked all morning on that sandwich.”

Robi giggled. At least someone thought I was funny. But he probably only thought it was funny because he was one of the kids who got a Bomb Pop.

“PLEASE, MOM!” Puck begged, his big hazel eyes growing wide with popsicle fever.

“Sorry, bud.”

“BUT, MOM!” he yelled over the din of the room with a big grin. “I’M YOUR SON!”

When I got back to Yali, who had spent the morning with Gloria, I learned about his adventures involving sticking a bean up his nose. The crisis was averted just in time.

And before I had time to yawn, it was three o’clock again. Time for pick-up at school.

Hans asked for first-day evaluations on a scale of one to ten from the kids.

“One,” Heidi replied; Fourth Grade would take some time to adjust to.

“Nine!” Big J said, enthusiastically. (Candy and extra recess always helps.)

“Negative out of negative,” Puck replied; but there was a grin on his face.

He had had a good day.

After they ran around the playground together for awhile, it was time to go. As we walked to the car, Puck had thoughts for me.

“Mom, my teacher is 94.”

“Now, Puck, see… we have another case of you getting your teacher’s age wrong. Remember when you thought Mr. V was 53 when he was only 43?”

“Well… she did have a smile on her face when she said it, so… maybe she’s not really 94.”

We’ll figure this out.