Thursday, April 7, 2016

calm before the storm?

I'm feeling surprisingly calm these days, but perhaps it's because I'm living the life with the new family, rather than worrying about what it was going to be like once the girl got here, like I was before. The kids don't know it, but their bickering and squabbling looks like normal sibling behaviour and makes me smile; I realize that, as the song goes, everything's gonna be all right.

Took the girl to the ceremony at school today where the new teachers and students are introduced and the students find out who their homeroom teachers are. All 9 of the new kids and their parents (except for one brave 3rd grader, who was on her own), met in the principal's office to hand in various paperwork and be told the sequence of events for the morning. One 3rd-grade boy marched in, took a look around at all the moms and loudly said, "The principal's a woman!" The male principal, who was sitting as his desk was pointed out; the boy marched up to him, bowed, and gave his name. The principal stood up and bowed back. It was very cute. Then the boy came to the table to sit, took one look at me and said loudly, "Mom! There's an American here!" I responded with a smile, "I'm Canadian, yo!!"

Someone came in to take our all paperwork and line up the kids to take them to the gym for the ceremony. We moms followed and were lined up in the back of a very cold gym to stand for the duration of the ceremony (45 min) in which various speeches were made, the school song was sung, and the new teachers and students introduced. The girl was first, because she was the oldest of the 9 newbies, and said her name and her former elementary school in a confident loud voice (with the help of a microphone). After that, all the kids left the gym with their homeroom teachers to the motivating sounds of Exile's "Rising Sun".

The girl's teacher told me that I didn't need to go to the class with her, so I went to work and was back in time to be introduced to the new crop of 220 first-year students in my department. When my name was read out, I bowed, and, inspired by my girl, called out "Good morning!" to the new students.

I went to pick the girl up just before lunch. Her teacher met with me and told me that although she was nervous, the other students were kind and welcoming to her and she'll take part in tomorrow's entrance ceremony for the new first-graders (only the sixth-graders attend). As we left, one of her classmates said sang out goodbye to her, which was music to my ears, because she has no friends in our area yet.

I can't attend the elementary school entrance ceremony tomorrow, because I have to our uni's one and read out students' names. Wish me luck and no laryngitis between tonight and tomorrow morning!



1 comment:

  1. It sounds like you are getting better support at the school than we did at our daughter's school 17-18 years ago. The older I get, the happier I am that I have siblings who shared childhood experiences with me. Your kids will probably be very happy for the connection - after they get through all the adolescent stuff... Best wishes for the new school year for everybody!

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