Elementary Meanderings

Kindergarten, 3rd grade and 5th grade. Those are the grades Noah, Zoe and Isabella are in this year, respectively. It took me until Isabella entered 2nd grade to no longer feel nauseous on the first day of school. Maybe it was because she started a new school and there were no lingering ghosts of past downtrodden school children floating around the halls. Or maybe it was because it didn't have that 1970s elementary school smell. Kindergarten is a blur for me. I remember the first day, I threw up the eggs I had for breakfast on the playground and the little overly helpful blond girl helped me to find the teacher. I was always mortified when people tried to assist me when I was sick. I had a kidney infection in 2nd grade and opted to stay home alone rather than go to my Grandma's house and be subjected to her friends pinching my cheeks and and paying too much attention to me (plus the infection made me pee my pants which was a secret I wanted to guard with my life). But I digress. That's all I remember from my first school and I think I became friends with that overly helpful blond girl again in 7th grade in a different town. She said she went to the same school in kindergarten and remembered me throwing up and helping me. But she was prone to lying, too. So I moved about a month in and my new teacher was strict but nice. The day I missed the whistle on the playground announcing the end of recess I stayed outside who knows how much extra time until I finally looked around and saw I was surrounded by the big kids. I finally found my sister and she walked me back to class. My teacher didn't look happy but she didn't yell at me, just gave me my math worksheet with strawberries on it and we carried on with the day. Later, my Mom went to parent teacher conference and came home and related the good laugh she and my teacher had at my expense over the situation. I was humiliated at the time, but now I know they probably just thought it was cute. That's about the extent of my kindergarten memories other than a boy named Skyler telling me I looked ugly on picture day because I had curled hair. He's the only kid in kindergarten who's name I remember. I guess you never forget the first boy who calls you ugly!

In 3rd grade I was on my 3rd school, having moved early in first grade. I loved 3rd grade. As far as elementary school went, this was the time when all the stars aligned. Miss Diston was my teacher. She was one of those popular teachers that every kid hopes they will get. She had long, straight, red hair and wore glasses, like me. Life was just easy that year, I had my friends Karen and Lele across the street and Colette at school. She had a twin sister in Karen's class named Nanette. The only way you could physically tell them apart was that Colette wore brown shoes and Nanette, blue. I was awesome in math that year. We had math groups and had to go to a different class based on the group you were in. I was proud to be in the highest math group. I loved the times tables and made it in the 3 minute club. You had to fill in the times table chart in 3 minutes to get in the club. After a lot of practice, I rocked it. But soon came my downfall when we had to master check writing and it was completely beyond my level of intelligence. Or maybe it was that third graders have no use for writing checks, thus they are not equipped with the capacity to learn such things. I also got to dance the hukelau in the third grade program, which was very cool. At the end of 3rd grade I moved and was sad, but I was accustomed to moving by then.

5th grade was a weird year. My best friends, Julie and Linda, moved over the summer leaving me on my own. That was partly good because my 4th grade crush was Linda's boyfriend and with her gone I could now make my move on Jamie Wright (who I secretly called Mister Right). But that was never to be for a shy girl like me. I had some work to do in 5th grade. While I believed my educating had been excellent in 3rd grade, even I knew my 4th grade teacher sucked and I had come out of 4th grade dumber than when I went in. Things at home were tense. My Mom and Dad were fighting even more than usual and I think we all knew the end was near. We moved just after Christmas after losing another house. I shared a room with my sister Lynn there. Every morning I woke up to that "Take off to the Great White North" song. The one by the Canadian comedians where they keep saying, "Take off, Hoser". It was on the radio every single morning for months, it seemed. I hated that song. I hated my new life at my new school, too. All the classes were full except the one that combined gifted 5th and 6th graders. I'm not an idiot but I wasn't prepared for that class. I was lost and the kids all thought I was a freak. I came home and cried a lot because the work was too hard and the kids hated me. Soon there was a diversion because my parents finally decided to give up and get the divorce we'd all seen coming my whole life. I think I was more relieved than sad. I'd never have to hide my head in my sleeping bag again, pretending to be asleep while I had a friend sleeping over, while my parents were having one of their screaming matches in the middle of the night. That was a good thing, and I got a new bike out of it. Needed that bike. So 5th grade ended on that note and I was off with siblings and my Mom to live in our first apartment ever. The divorced months offered new adventures, followed by the step-parent years. And as usual, they all landed me in a new school at the start of almost every school year.