Who knew that the first day of school would be the easy part? Kids float through the day hyped up on adrenaline. With all the new stimuli, the day is over before they know it. The hard part is getting them to go back every day after that. At least it is in our case.
Brendan seems to enjoy his classes. He looks forward to GT (gifted and talented) and Art. His teachers are pretty cool. He has three male teachers. His science teacher reminds him of his favorite teacher back in England. The only part of the day that he worries about (obsesses about) is lunch. If he didn't have that 30 minutes to himself, he'd be okay. The reason he doesn't like it is because he doesn't have any friends to eat with. That breaks my heart.
So Bill worked with him last night on a plan to make lunch go by faster. He's to eat slowly and take a magazine to read. Thankfully, I had one he was interested in about the last Harry Potter book. Maybe that will be a conversation starter in the lunchroom. Then Bill pumped him full of positive thoughts and taught him to work through his tummy aches.
I suppose I do remember the struggle we had with the days after the first day when he started at Collingtree. But the kids there were so inviting, he made friends immediately, on the first day. That was such a special place.
Here, many of the kids knew each other from Elementary, and so far, he hasn't broken into any groups. I pray for him every day, throughout the day, to find a good friend. that would make all the difference in the world.
