6th Grade Is Killing Me

Sixth grade is killing me and I'm 41.  My sweet girl started 6th grade this week and it is one of the hardest things I've gone through as a parent.  The school is full of 6th graders, twice as many kids as she had in her whole elementary.  It's a shock to the system.  Her classes are full of kids she doesn't know, the cafeteria is a sea of faces, laughing and talking and hanging out, and she is floating without a life preserver.

 I know she will be okay, and I know that a billion kids have gone before her and survived.  But they weren't my child.

I so clearly remember taking her to kindergarten.  As we walked down the hall she held my hand tight, and as we walked into the room she held even tighter.  Those tiny little fingers gripping with all their might. As we walked down the sidewalk to the 6th grade center I was rattling on about how much fun it was going to be and how great it would be to make new friends, and then I felt her.  She reached out and took my hand, holding on tight, those fingers, now longer, griping with all their might.  And in that moment, my heart ached in a way I hadn't known before - like all the other times in her life I could somehow protect her from the really crappy parts of growing up, but not this time.

I want her to make a really great friend, to feel comfortable, to laugh a lot, and to remember 6th grade as a great time in her life.  I want everyone I know to pray that this is what will happen, and if you don't pray then light a candle, or send it out to the universe, just do something, because seeing big sad tears roll down her face is killing me.  

Gas is Great, Gas is Good...

I had my teeth cleaned today. My dentist gives gas for this, if you want it. I do. I used to have dental anxiety (from a kooky dentist I had as a kid) but 12 years ago I hit the dentist jackpot. He eases all my anxiety with his kind bedside manner... and gas - I actually don't mind going anymore. My husband thinks it's weird that I always use the gas. BUT, he's never tried it! He's chicken to ask for it. He won't admit that part but I know it's true. He says he doesn't need it and that they would think he was some kind of drug head for asking for it. I know he's wrong. It's one of the last frontiers of "legal highs". Seriously, look how happy I am, and I'm in a dental chair!