Calling All Moms With Middle School Kids

We are in week 3 of middle school here at the Humpfreeze house.

The middle school transition may be the most difficult – in my opinion.

Mostly I think this because it’s been rougher than the first batch of older three Humpfreeze and their transition to high school or college.

Side note: Well, that’s if you skip that first week of 8th grade which was not only the darling twins middle school transition but also their public school transition as we homeschooled in their 7th grade and K-6th grade was in private school…sorry drifting down memory lane…that first week of 8th grade public school where Wizzy saw a knife in a girl’s purse and reported it to a teacher and then we spent some conference time with a counselor and administrator covering it up so the brand new school wouldn’t get a black mark and the girl didn’t get expelled because zero tolerance in the handbook didn’t apply to the knife or that particular girl. Pretty sure that was the longest run-on sentence I’ve ever written. Oh, the fun was really just beginning as The Bubble began to pop with the exposure to all the things I had kept hidden for so long.

Middle school is the age – again just my opinion – where the kids have outgrown a lot of the cuteness and it takes a whole lot of extra love and patience to not ground these children until high school graduation. You just don’t hear a lot of people saying things like “Look at that group of middle school kids, aren’t they adorable?” They are struggling to become more independent but are not quite old enough for any real freedom from those darn parents.

Week 1 of Middle School

Scary Baby’s first week was so smooth we were scared. We’re not pessimists but we knew it was the calm before the storm but we praised her independence. She got up every morning and got herself ready with time to spare. (She saves quite a bit of time by not brushing her hair – a story for another day.) Five days in a row of smoothly going to school is close to a record. Sorry, still no picture.

Week 2 of Middle School

Tuesday, day six. It is crucial that she get her instrument for orchestra T-O-N-I-G-H-T because she will be the only one without an instrument if we don’t take her to the music store right now. We had already spent a good deal of time discussing instrument selection and were unable to convince her that we thought band would be a better choice than orchestra. Never mind our reasons – none of us are musical unless you count the fact that we all have iPods and some of us love, love, love country music.

We simply supported her decision to choose orchestra. In an imaginary coin toss she chooses the viola over the violin. We don’t know why and we don’t care. We are just glad it is not the cello or bass.

Surely you know by now that Saint PhilBillPaul took her that very night to get the last rental viola in the state of Georgia.

And even though we have learned that some nasty little middle school boy commented that her viola was “obviously used” she has been loud and proud about her new acquisition.

Middle school boys are icky.

Wednesday, Day Seven.
It’s all over. She visited the clinic because her stomach hurt. We do not want the clinic to get to know Scary Baby better than the entire student body. We hoped we had left this elementary school legacy behind her. Thank goodness her very sweet and darling brother was available to take some magical Tums® to the clinic so she could finish her day.

I will write part two of this glorious day what transpired that evening in another post.

The best part of this lengthy story about middle school?

When The Grunter entered the middle school office, he says the receptionist was a wee bit busy texting under her desk and looked up quickly and said to him,

“Checking in?”

I’m still laughing that he could have checked himself in as an 8th grader. 7th grader? He turns 21 next month. My poor pumpkin.

I also told him he should have checked in, went to an 8th grade class, sat down and then we could have broke a giant news story about some security risks in the school system since a 20 year-old got past the front desk and could have done harm.

Might have made up for the “covering up the knife in the purse incident” that I’m obviously still holding a grudge about.

Just sayin’

Any thoughts, ideas, suggestions on how to make the middle school transition less overwhelming? It’s obvious that I’m way too old to have a middle school child and poor Scary Baby gets the short end of the parenting stick…