The 3rd Grade

 “The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder.” ~Ralph W. Sockman

It’s the first day of 3rd grade for this sweet little, not so little Dino Dude. As each year passes, it gets harder to believe that he is actually that old. By the time he gets to his senior year in high school, I’m sure I’ll be in total denial. I’m not going to lie, it’s still not easy, to walk him into the school and drop him off, with someone I haven’t gotten to know all that well. It’s hard not to worry about the way he’s molded, not only by his teachers, but by his peers. I worry more about the latter more and more as he gets older.  I can only hope that something I have said, something I have repeated over and over again has sunk in…..Be your own person. YOU be the one that people want to follow. Be a good example. Be kind.

I’m a lucky mom. I have a child with a thirst for learning. He actually enjoys it. He actually enjoys most of his classes. My sweet little boy, who looks like a California surfer, with bleached hair and a cute little tan, has been ready to go back to school since the day he left last June. I hope this year for him opens up as many new worlds as it did for me. 3rd grade was the year that I fell in love with reading. My teacher, Mrs. Benson, read out loud the Boxcar Children and Charlottes Web that year, and that’s when I fell in love with stories. I couldn’t get enough of them. I spent the next several summers with my nose in a book. My Dino dude loves facts. He loves non-fiction. There is a constant ticker of facts he just learned coming from the back seat. But he has a love for stories as well, more often than not, seriously concerned about a character in trouble in one of his books.  I also remember having to learn cursive in 3rd grade. It was torturous. I never could get my “r’s” quite right. I wonder if our children will learn cursive? Writing on paper, as they get older and older, is becoming obsolete. His life, especially in school, is so much different than mine ever was. It seems to be so much more real and adult for him. There are 5 times more tests. They have to learn at a much faster rate when they are little. But…. that Dino Dude of mine, he handles it in stride. I hope he continues to do that for the rest of his life.

So, my little boy, who is not so little any more….may your pursuit of knowledge be as fruitful as your pursuit of the perfect summer day has been.