The New Kid

Yesterday was Alyssa's first day at her new school. She started second grade.

Second grade with kids who'd been in kindergarten and first grade together while she had not been with them.

It was tough.

When I picked her up from school (the bus adventure starts Monday)she was cheerful and bounding with energy. She told me about Samantha, beside whom she sits in class and with whom she ate her lunch and played during recess.

She said they did math and it was hard.

8pm rolled around and she was tired. And this lead to her crawling into my lap and whimpering, "I don't want to go to school tomorrow."

And this lead to an hour of sobbing about how she doesn't know any of the kids' names, and she doesn't know the recess/lunch teachers' names. And she did't have a purple folder or a yellow folder while all the other kids did (these two things were NOT on the school supply list, so it's totally not my or her fault she didn't have folders in those colors) and the other kids had pencil cases and she didn't.

And worst of all? She doesn't know where the art room is.

I soothed her fears, told her she'd learn the kids' names. It just takes time. I told her I'd go with her this morning and ask her teacher to tell her/all the kids the names of the recess teachers and the lunch teachers.

I told her we'd get her pencil case out of her old backpack this afternoon and she could take it to school tomorrow.

I also reminded her that she's never be expected to go to the art room alone, so she doesn't really need to know where it is. She can just follow the other teacher and kids when it's time for art.

She was tired. And nervous. It's hard to be the new kid.

I told her that each day it will get easier. Each day, she'll learn more names and more about the school. Each day, she'll be a little farther from being the new kid until one day she'll walk into school and realize that it's not the new school, it's just school and she isn't the new kid, she's just a kid.

It didn't help much. She still cried when I left her this morning. But I do know that the only way for her to get over this is to get through it. She's going to be fine, whether she realizes it or not.

But yeah, it's so hard to be the new kid. And I'm sad that my kid has to go through this. I was never the new kid. I went to the same school with the same kids from k through 12th grade. But second grade is still so young, she's really going to be fine.

Once she's no longer the new kid.