Looking forward, looking back.

Today was Juliette's official last day of Kindergarten. She arrived home with a backpack full of stuff and several notes: thank you notes from the teachers, the principal, random paperwork regarding the summer reading program... and an official looking letter addressed to "The Parent/ Guardian of". I opened it up and found a slip of paper that said, simply,

"Congratulations! You have been promoted to"

Under that a sticker was printed with the words:

"1st grade, Mrs. ----"

It actually took me a minute to realize that Mrs.--- was Juliette's first grade teacher. When did they start handing out class assignments at the end of the year? I clearly remember waiting with eager anticipation to get a letter in the mail sometime late in the summer, anxious that my friends and I be in the same class. When did that change? You would think that the sooner they give out the information, the longer they have to deal with parent complaints, so that they would put it off as long as possible.

I don't really know much about the teachers, but Mrs. --- was a completely unfamiliar name and I was a little bit worried about my complete lack of knowledge; am I that far out of it? So I looked in the directory to find Mrs. --, but she wasn't there. Not in first grade, not in second... not in any grade. "Great." I thought. "Juliette is getting the brand new teacher. The unknown quantity." I began to fret. What could I have done to guarantee Juliette a better teacher? Then I started to think about the teachers I had, those I liked and those I didn't. My second and third grade teachers were awful. All of my memories of those two years are bad ones. And I wondered; there are a few bad teachers out there, and someone has to get that teacher. What was my first grade teacher thinking as she was parsing out her students? How did I get so unlucky as to get the bad one? Was it because she thought I was a strong student? Was it because she knew my mom would be an active and involved advocate for me? Was it bad luck?

Fortunately, Juliette had a birthday party after school (yes, another one), and as the kids were bouncing and chasing each other around the bounce houses, the mothers were all asking "Who'd you get?" It turns out that Mrs. --- is not 'the new one', but rather, the 'newly married one'. Juliette has had a wonderful year and I'm sad to see it come to a close. She has made good friends, learned a lot, and gained so much confidence. I hope it carries over. As we were watching the photo-video that one of the room moms made for us all, I was getting teary eyed. At the end, Juliette looked at me and said "Mommy, that made me sad!" In her six year old heart she understands that this is an ending- the first of many. Maybe they give out the class assignments on the last day of school so that we can all look forward to the new year. I just hope that every year is as good as this one, and that Juliette never gets stuck with 'the bad one'.