Summer hasn't started, but middle school embarrassment has

Fifth-grade isn't officially over yet...not for us anyway. While most kids are out on summer break, we are still in school for two more weeks. Yep, you read that right. Two. More. Weeks.  Our school is on a modified year round calendar, which we absolutely love during fall break in October and our extra week of spring break, but it sucks the very joy out of our life during these last two weeks of school while all of you are posting pictures of your beach vacations on Facebook while we are forcing our kids to read for 20 minutes and complete homework packets every night.

Let me say this one more time, lest you don't fail to understand where I'm coming from. Two. More Weeks.  To add injury to this already painful insult, thanks to Texas' insane winter, we have to make up a snow day, which means our last day of school is Monday, June 22.

Normally, I would be moaning and groaning along with (or, let's face it, louder than) my kids. But since the end of this school year also marks the end of Anna's life in her lovely, perfect, safe elementary school, I'm in no rush for it to come to an end.

For reasons that I don't quite understand, our church is not on the same page. While most grades don't get "promoted" until August with the traditional school calendar, last week was her last week in her fifth-grade Sunday school class, meaning in the eyes of the church, and I suppose by default in the eyes of God himself, my baby girl is a middle schooler.

I'm a preacher's kid, which means I literally grew up in church. I know what a big deal it is to move from the safe confines of the Sunday school classroom to the freedom of youth group. The memories I made in our church youth group are some of the best I have to this day. Lock-in's, games, mission trips, spiritual journeys, and coming of age. Boys. Girls. Boys and girls. Yeah, I have plenty of memories.

It just so happens that the middle school pastor, Jack, is a member of our community group and a good personal friend, which made this day much easier, for me and Anna. Well, for me anyway.

Here's how the conversation in the car went on Sunday morning.

{Kristen} So since it's your first day, I'm going to walk you up and tell Jack not to lose you, not to break you, and to return you to me exactly as I gave you to him. 

[Anna] Please don't.

 {Kristen} I'm also going to tell him that he needs to make this the most special Sunday ever. You know, make the sermon really good and really teach you something incredible, since it's your first day. Also, I'm going to see if he will take pictures and text him to me every few minutes so that I can document your first day. And then I will text him every few minutes and ask him how you are doing.

[Anna] Seriously, please don't.

{Kristen} I just want to make sure that you have a good experience. 

[Anna] ......

{Kristen} Are you nervous?

[Anna] No.

{Kristen} Are you nervous about me going up there?

[Anna] Yes.

I'm a really cool mom. Well, I'm a mom. So, I let her go up by herself so that I didn't embarrass her. And then, two minutes later, I walked in and had my conversation with Jack. Anna, who prior to my walking in, had been talking to Jack herself, upon seeing me, walked away as quickly as she could to the opposite side of the room and pretended not to know me. Jack gave me every assurance that he wouldn't break her and that she was going to be fine. I asked him about taking pictures every few minutes and texting them, but he said he was teaching that morning so it probably wasn't practical.

I started to walk out, but as I did, I realized that I should probably take a picture to mark this occasion, since Jack couldn't do it for me. It was, after all, the first official middle school event in Anna's life, and someday she was going to want to remember it, even if she didn't realize it at the moment. She was sitting at the front of the room, and as I mentioned, I'm a cool mom, so I didn't want to embarrass her more by walking right up to her, so I whispered "Anna" from the back of the room. She turned her head, saw I had my phone out to take a picture, violently shook her head, as if to somehow indicate that she didn't appreciate my desire to mark this milestone. Some moms would have walked away at this moment, but those moms probably don't love their daughters as much as I do, nor do their daughters have as high of a tolerance for embarrassment as Anna. I whispered it one more time, slightly louder, to which she turned around and I quickly snapped a picture.

Although the picture is dark and a bit blurry, you can clearly see her eye-roll.

[Anna] My first day as a Middle schooler in church was very fun. I met some great high school girls that I hung out with before I sat down. One of the pastors talked about a camp called "A Can of Coke." Jack talked about the little kids summer camp called Explosion. We learned how to teach kids how to be connected with God. Now, before I tell you about what all we learned, my Mom wanted to come up to the room and tell Jack not to break me. She came in and took a picture of me (which I did not want) and embarrassed me a lot. Even though I will not be out of school for Explosion but I learned how to explain God's story to kids that may not understand and learned some pointers on how to handle kids. 

After I told my Mom what we did we had a conversation.

{Kristen} So now that you know how to teach kids, are you going to teach Ryan?

[Anna] No

{Kristen} Why not?

[Anna] Because we learned how to teach kids that don't know about God. Plus he knows all that I know.

{Kristen} Maybe I should volunteer!

[Anna] No!

{Kristen} I could bring Ryan. 

(Ryan) I could be your test dummy. You could practice on me. 

{Kristen} Perfect. He could be like your mascot.

(Ryan) Oh yeah! I want to do that. Can I do that?

{Kristen} I am loving this idea. He could be McKinney Man.

(Ryan) Like a superhero that comes and you test stuff out on and then I run around and help people.

[Anna] I don't think so....

{Kristen} Or I could just volunteer.....

[Anna] I would rather have McKinney Man. You could make him a costume!

Welcome to eye-rolls and ice cream! One mother & daughter's take on love, life, & middle school

So much is talked and written about how difficult the tween and teenage years are, particularly for girls. When Ryan was born, I remember people telling us that his toddler would be tougher, but to hold on, because Anna would give us way more grief during her teen years. It's like people prepare you from birth to dread spending time with your daughters from the time they are 11 until they graduate from college. Between the hormones, middle school politics, and the struggle to figure out who they want to be, adults assume that teens, particularly girls are all eye-rolls and slamming doors.

And maybe they are. 

We are just entering the tweenage years. Anna is wrapping up fifth-grade and she and I are just starting conversations about crushes and mean girls and hormones and what kind of classes to take to prepare for college (yes, that starts now!). 

I love these conversations. Sometimes I walk away feeling like I've inspired her and helped her solve the problem and other times I leave sure I've made her problem a million times worse that and she will end up a homeless harmonica player thanks to my confusing metaphors and ex-boyfriend stories. 

But the thing I love most is that we have conversations.  Our goal for eye-rolls and ice cream is that it is a place where conversations happen. Each week Anna and I will tackle a topic. Some may be silly and others maybe more serious. Anna and I will both offer our viewpoints. 

Like this

{anna}

Being a fifth grader is a lot easier said than done. I feel like once I am a teenager life will be harder and I won't want to talk to my parents anymore. For now I go to my Mom or Dad for problems and I savor every talk that we have. I think that right now life is going pretty easy but in my crazy family, how can your life not be? I am just now entering the new universe of boys and mean girls and it is a lot harder than you would imagine. If you have a younger sibling and are going through puberty than you know that life can be pretty hard. I have a little brother named Ryan and he is very cute but very annoying. I think that I have tried many methods to calm down and not roll my eyes but sometimes you just need to close the door to your room and cry. I have done that quite a few times myself but I will always love my entire family{including my dog}.

[kristen]

Fifth-grade is almost over. Part of me wants to sing the hallelujah chorus and the other part of me is curled up in a corner weeping uncontrollably. I simply cannot believe that in two weeks she will walk out of that campus and be done with elementary school. Everyone tells you that it goes fast. In fact, that is almost all that they tell you. When you have a baby -- when they start kindergarten -- everybody tells you to savor every minute because it goes so fast, but you cannot possibly grasp how right they are until it is too late. Until it's over. Until you are sending their baby picture in to the yearbook so that picture can remind you that everybody from the nurse who delivered your baby, to your own mother, to the complete stranger at the grocery store, tried to warn you to enjoy every single minute because before you knew it she would no longer look like that chubby cheeked little cherub in the baby photo, but instead like the tall, beautiful young woman in the photograph next to it who is no longer an elementary student, but is off to middle school. And there isn't a single thing you can do to get one of those minutes back. 

So that's it! Whether you're smack dab in the middle of the tweenage years, they are long behind you or they are a decade away, we hope this will spark conversations with your daughter and that you will hang out a while. We'd love to hear from you! Please send suggestions of topics you would like us to cover -- things you've struggled with or had success with in your home. Anything is fair game, from keeping your room clean, what to listen to on the radio in the car, best dance moves, the possibilities are endless!