Facie’s Ramblings

J survived her first week of fourth grade at her kind-of-new school (two other schools merged with hers). And I survived a week of lunch duty, which I can now smile about. Change is hard for most of us (I am looking right at you, self!). And when many people have to do something completely different, with dozens upon dozens of new faces, in a place they are not used to, well, you should not expect sunshine and lollipops. At least not every day. After my first day of lunch duty this week, I wanted to cry. It was chaotic at times. There are 140 more students than there were last year, and of those students, probably 160 are new to me. So I cannot call many of them by name to get their attention or correct them. In the case of the last lunch (there are three), I have no idea who is in what grade since they can sit wherever they want, which means I often don't know if the correct kids are heading out to recess (we call them a grade at a time). Throughout this week, I saw some kid...

After one week, I managed to send out one thank-you note. Before I reread the post this relates to , I thought I had failed already, as I had sent out just that one note. But fortunately, knowing myself well (duh!), I apparently set a goal for two notes a month. Phew! The first note went to a mom of another third grader in J's school. As I have blogged (and complained) about before, some Catholic school moms are mean, which, I suppose, makes them like some moms in general. And many moms are just not welcoming. This mom, I am delighted to say, was unlike most other moms. When J was new to the school in first grade and many of the moms ignored me, N was the nicest person. As I would stand alone outside of my car at the end of day, waiting for the kids to come out, she would come over and ask me to join her group. She tried to make conversation with me, unlike her mom friends, for most of whom it seemed to be a bother to smile at me. Eventually, I gave up trying to talk to the g...