Sunday, June 15, 2008

Weekend Roundup

Well, last week kind of got away from me after all the soccer last weekend. Here are some highlights:

~~ Samantha and her dad had their last day of school Friday. Samantha was pretty depressed. Later on that day we went to her school to see who her teacher would be next year. Her kindergarten teacher is actually going to teach a K/1 split, and she had called me earlier in the day to let me know that Sam had been chosen for her class. She said she was dying to tell her, since Sam was moping around the classroom. On the way to the school Mantha was speculating, saying, Oh, I hope I don't get this teacher; she's mean. So when she saw the name of her teacher next to her last name, she was totally surprised. I said, Oh, it looks like you maybe have to repeat Kindergarten. She didn't buy it. She knows me too well. So she is thrilled and talks about first grade, so far, approximately once an hour.

~~ We went to a barbeque on Friday at a friend's house who Eric used to teach with at Federal Way. Two other guys who left the same year, best friends of ours, were there, also. It was a really nice evening, but I was also dealing with some middle school drama on the side. It seems that two of Alex's "friends", one of which, up until a month ago, she would have said was her best friend, have decided they no longer like her. Her main friend was having an end of the year party and had invited Alex to go. When I got Alex from school on Thursday, I could tell something was wrong. She had been told by two other people that the reason she had been invited to the party was to make her feel bad. She called her "friend" and told her what she had heard and asked her about it. This girl denied it all, and when Alex asked her if she was mad at her, this girl said, No, not at all, and that she would certainly tell Alex if she ever was mad at her. Alex told her she'd have to discuss it with me, whether or not she would be at the party. The next day at school she had another friend come up and tell her that she had heard the same thing, that Alex had been invited to be made fun of. So Alex came to the barbeque instead. Halfway through the BBQ, Alex was texting one of the girls that was at the party, and this girl told her to be glad she didn't come because it had turned into an "I Hate Alex" party. Needless to say, Alex was pretty upset.

We struggled with what to do about it all day Saturday. Alex had another party, with all different people, to go to on Saturday night. I told her to go to that party, and if anyone tried to talk about the party on Friday, to tell them she didn't go for a reason and didn't want to hear about it. When I picked her up Saturday night, she was a different kid. She had had a blast, and as she was leaving, girls were hugging her and telling her they loved her. She had one girl tell her they needed to hang out more in the future.

She did hear a little about the Friday party, and it sort of sounded like the "IHA" part was mostly her ex-friend Jillian. Well, I have news for you, Jillian. No matter how hard you work at trying to get Alex's friends to turn on her, she'll always have friends and she'll always KICK your ASS on the soccer field. And you might want to cultivate a few friendships aside from the ONE friend who is seemingly sharing your desire to hurt my daughter these days. She has gotten rid of a girl before; but luckily that girl, as well as Alex, both have OTHER friends to hang out with. You have NO ONE. If it ever happens to you, you might want to have a backup. And from what we've heard from a couple of your club soccer teammates, you might want to work on getting some of them to like you as well.

~~ Samantha's teacher's daughter graduated this year and had an "all chocolate" graduation party, which was to go from 2:00 to 5:00. We got home last night about 10:30. It was a really great time, and the chocolate part was amazing. They had one room filled with chocolate pies and cake and desserts and chocolate covered everything. Then in the kitchen there was a chocolate fountain. The weather actually cooperated and was nice. The whole way home, Sam whined about how she had eaten too much chocolate. I'm sure.

~~ Today is Father's Day, and we are meeting the family at the Red Robin in Auburn for dinner. Then Eric has a softball game. All in all, a stressful weekend that has turned out to be a pretty eye-opening experience, but in a good way. Lots of REALLY good friends all around, and plenty of good middle school friends to take the place of horrible middle school ex-friends with average GPA's and only "select" soccer skills, as opposed to "premiere" soccer skills. I never thought about the "premiere" designation before, and never really cared, but now it's thrilling to be able to trot that out. HA!

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