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.
[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!
No comments:
Post a Comment