Time’s Up!

School has come to a close for another year after nine months of teaching, learning and growth of all kinds – physical, mental, social, emotional and spiritual. But the weeks and days leading up to the last day of school can often be frenzied and create a roller coaster of emotions. Take Exhibit A and B, our daughters.

Our eldest – fittingly known as A in this example because she’s very much a Type A personality with a perfectionist approach to life and anal-retentive tendencies – has obsessed about P.E. almost from the beginning of the school year. As a first grader, she only went to physical education class once a week with her peers, but every Tuesday night, she would cry and worry about what they would do the following day with Coach West. She was afraid he would ask them to do something she wouldn’t be able to do – or, worse yet, she’d be on a losing team. The girl hates to lose.

So imagine my surprise when she brought home a sweet booklet the last day of school called “Memories of My Year 2008-2009” and in response to the statement, “This is my favorite place at school” she wrote P.E. in big letters and drew a picture of herself smiling in the gym. Are you freakin’ kidding me?!? We have agonized over this class at school for three-quarters of a year, wondering if something traumatic had happened there that would deeply affect her psyche and future ability to be a “team player” in any capacity, ONLY to find out that this is, in fact, her favorite place at the entire institution of learning.

Aren’t kids a hoot?

Then there’s our second daughter, Exhibit B, who had a complete meltdown in the bathtub last week with real, genuine tears (as opposed to her normal, Oscar-worthy performances) over the issue of growing up. Peter Panna apparently doesn’t want to. She said I now treat her like a grownup, but she wants to stay a little girl forever.

As a highly emotional child, our youngest has an especially hard time with beginnings and endings. I think her graduation ceremony from pre-K and the accompanying “You’re a big girl now so act like it!” pep talks have sunk in – and she’s realizing that pre-school and life in general up ‘til now have been a pretty darn sweet ride.

Then again, endings and change are difficult for all of us, whether we want to admit it or not. Our older daughter even got emotional on the last day of school, hugging her teacher for an extended and multiple amount of times as if she’d never see her again. (Her classroom next fall will be next door to Miss Peterman.)

But I know both of our girls will adjust and be fine. Our youngest has already gotten more excited about the thought of being in kindergarten next year – especially when she found out a field trip to the zoo was involved. And our oldest is very proud to officially be a second grader now.

I’m reminded of a story that my family has laughed about for several months. Our first grader came home from school one day frustrated about a computer math program called Math Magician they were using to learn addition and subtraction. The kids had to correctly answer 20 math equations in 60 seconds – a rigidly timed exercise – in order to get a certificate and move on to the next level.

“Andrew always gets 100% on the math quizzes in computer class,” our eldest, ever the competitor, lamented.

“Good for Andrew,” I replied. “What do you get?” I asked, fully expecting to hear her say a percentage or letter grade.

“Time’s up!” she retorted without missing a beat.

Well baby, the “Time’s Up” buzzer has sounded on another school year – and once again you and your sister have made your parents very, very proud.