Hello, Second Grade!

I really do mean to update more. It's just that, well... I don't. True story. Ha!

Boy Wonder started second grade today. Can you believe that? It seems like just yesterday he was telling me he wanted to be a motorcycle when he grew up.

He was hiding in the closet when he didn't want to use the potty. He was dressing up in every piece of Halloween costume in a five-mile vicinity...wait, he still does that. Nevermind.

We got together this morning and assembled the team to walk him the block and a half to school. Like his own ticker-tape parade on his own very special day. Boo was thrilled to walk him to the big school until he realized we had to leave him there. Poor guy just got his big brother back and now he's got to do without him during the school day? The world's not always fair to a two year-old!

Boy Wonder is in a program where you stay with the same teacher for two years. This was supposed to be his second year with her, but she quit two days ago. The same second graders (his buddies from last year) were there waiting, but the room layout was different. The energy was different. He hesitated at the front of the room when he realized there were no more seats at the "boy table" and he had to sit with the girls.

I was worried for a split second that this may not be the most auspicious beginning to his second grade year.

And then, well, Boy Wonder relaxed. He sat next to the cute little girl who rode on the sled with him at the winter party last year (she jumped on his sled as it started down the hill at Kincaid and shocked all manner of on lookers...Boy Wonder's mama included!) and I realized all was right in Boy Wonder's world. The ladies loved him. The new teacher was young and just as excited to meet her new class as they were to meet their new teacher. And the boys were jealous that he had a table full of girls all to himself.

Crazy how life works out, isn't it?

I remember my first day of second grade. I had to get on a bus and drive all across the city of Austin to a school that sat in the middle of the worst neighborhood in the city. I was terrified and wanted nothing more than to have everything the way it was before.

I wore a red and black plaid dress with too-tight capped sleeves. (I cut them with my safety scissors when I got to school). I had uber short hair that stuck out at my temples, despite eight gallons of hairspray and all the saliva my mom could muster. (Gross, right? Me and mom/hair issues go way back. I've mentioned my fourth grade "mullet" stage numerous times.)

Second grade was infinite possibilities. It was the beginning of multiplication and the awesomeness of chapter books. Second grade introduced me to Nancy Drew and the Babysitters Club. It was the beginning of me, my own separate, living, breathing person who had to face my own fears and make my own friends. Despite how scared I was on that bus, second grade was a fantastic adventure.

I wonder what's waiting for my Boy Wonder?