It was the equivalent of Match Day for the elementary.

(Just in case you don't know what Match Day is, please click here.)

When I called K- after school, as I always do, she was so excited.  "Mom!  I got Mrs. B- and we got to visit with her in class and she read us a book.  And guess what?  E- is in my class!  (The neighbor girl.)  And so is Mackenzie and Lauren!" 

We found out that Mrs. S- did a bit of a shake-up with her class and as I suspected, the children who appeared to have hooked up through the year were split off in different classes from each other.  K- is one of those split pairs, but in this case, we are very happy about it.  K- had palled around with a girl who, in the end, made K- really pull up her boot straps, toss away her only-childness and really make her dig in and confirm that she is good enough, smart enough and people DO like her.  This is a triumph for K-, as the first mention of "I won't be your friend if . . . " at the beginning of the year turned my child to an instant pile of submissiveness.  K- has learned that she is confident enough not to be shaken by the idol threat and is quite happy to move on to be friendly with other children, regardless of gender.  This was confirmed to me when we had our hike the other day.  Her hiking buddy decided to buddy up with another child.  K- was fine with that, walked arm-in-arm and hand-in-hand (yes, all at the same time with three girls and I wished I could have gotten a picture) with two other girls that giggled, laughed and talked the whole remainder of the way together.  Her initial walking buddy decided to hop back to K-, but at this point, K- had moved on.  The original walking buddy was chaffed by the experience and was rather visually and audibly put out by it.  I was glad that I was at the back of the pack to be able to watch the event unfold and to see my child handle it all on her own, and with complete confidence.  She wasn't rude, but she had moved on and effectively and politely handled herself.  She wasn't rattled.  A.M.E.N. 

Match Day?  A success for us.  K- is with the teacher that we hoped for, though trusted the system and didn't put in a formal written request for, and she's excited about the change of classmates for the following year.  Second grade, here we come!

Smiles in my day:
-  K-'s excitement for next year. 
-  K- had a make-up soccer game this evening, which went very well, but confirmed that our child is not one geared to be able to do extra-curriculars during the week.  We knew this, but this small test confirmed our suspicions.  A full day of school, a couple of hours of soccer and not hitting the home front for more than 12 hours took a lot out of all of us.  How is this a smile?  We know our family ability and we confirmed that we need to stick to that for maximum family happiness.
-  Finding out that the hose on the rain barrel was crimped, but I was able to move it so that the next time that it decides to rain, she should fill up just fine.  It rained torrentially for hours and I would have had that whole thing filled, but lesson learned.  It was an easy fix!

Have a great day!