Flip Flop

I am seeing a shift in my children these days, and it is this:

The one who was miserably bored with school, now—with the shift to a new half-preschool, half-pre-K situation—jumps out of the car and runs to school. She chatters to me excitedly about volcanoes. She tells me they had green eggs and ham to celebrate Dr. Seuss’ birthday. She is eager to see the fuzzy chicks which are going to hatch ANY SECOND NOW in the incubator in her classroom.

Meanwhile, the one who has always LOVED school, who was not at all apprehensive about her 4^th/5^th grade combination class at the beginning of the year (despite my privately held misgivings), is now dragging her butt to school. Black History Month (more specifically slavery) is one reason.  Another is that the 4^th graders were promised a whole week away from the 5^th graders, who were all supposed to go to Science Camp for the week last week. And then only two 5^th graders went to Science Camp (which at $200 a pop, is out of range for many of the families at school). She was looking forward to her grade having their teacher all to themselves for once. The 5^th graders are a pain in the ass, a thorn in her side.

I am nonplussed. I am of course happy that Ceeya loves her new school, which she started in February (and I can’t believe I haven’t yet posted about that yet). But I am bummed that Viva is now really disliking school. Her grades are still good, but she’s really struggling with her attitude. I know, life is not all peaches and roses – Lord, do I know. But Viva is generally a pretty happy kid and now her general mood is one of Funk. And not in the way that I like.

We are planning Spring Break and her 10^th birthday is coming up and I’m hoping that will help. And meanwhile, we keep talking things through. We keep talking. (And in Ceeya’s case, we keep talking loudly, generally right over somebody as they are in the middle of a sentence, and we get offended if it is gently pointed out to us that such behavior is rude, and then we tell everyone within earshot that we don’t want to talk to them ever again and they are no longer our best friend. And then twenty minutes later we wrap our arms around them and squeeze, lest they forget that they are always our best friend and must never leave us. Oh, Ceeya. She is a complicated little person.)