Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Making New Friends

Last Friday I volunteered in Lana's kindergarten class.  Now that I have free time for a few hours each week, I figured I should help out the very overworked teachers.  Lana has the same kindergarten teacher Sonya did, so I already know her and know how she works.  She always welcomes parent help.  She's not stupid.  I was looking forward to going and helping out, and even more interested in seeing how Lana behaved in a classroom setting.  Her preschool teachers always told me how good she was.  They weren't lying.

Lana is a model student in class.  She listens and responds when she's supposed.  It's obvious she saves all her antics and crankiness especially for me at home.  Or at least that's what I thought.  I learned that day that she tends to let it out at bit at recess too.  

Since school started, back in August, Lana would come home every day and tell me she "made up a  new friend!"  

"Really?" I would ask.  "What is her name?"

"Ummmmm...I don't know, I forget!" She'd tell me. 

This is the response I would get every day for at least two weeks.  I kept telling her to try and remember to ask names.  Eventually she came home one day and told me she found out the name of the girl she'd been playing with.  Jazlyn!  Well, at least she finally got one name.

So the day I went in to volunteer I was scouting the classroom to find this Jazlyn girl.  It's always interesting to see what kind of kids your kid likes to play with.  During recess a little girl walked in the classroom as I helping some of the other kids with an art project.  She looked around the room and I asked if I could help her with something.  She told me no, and I asked her her name.

"Jazlyn," she responded.  

"Ohhh!!  Jazlyn!" I said.  "I'm Lana's mommy.  Lana said you two are friends."

"Yup," she said nodding her head.

"Do you have fun at recess?" I asked, trying to make conversation with a five year old.

"Yeah..only...well...Lana is grumpy a lot of days," she told me.

"Oh really?" I asked feigning surprise.  Let's be honest, I love Lana, but she IS grumpy a lot of days.  I just didn't know the other five year olds knew it.  

"Yeah," she admitted.  Then she clapped her hand over her mouth like she said something bad and with widened eyes said to me, "Don't tell her I said that though, or she won't be my friend anymore!"

"I won't say anything," I promised her.  "Plus I think she's still be your friend."  Maybe.

Well, on the plus side it looks like Lana doesn't have any problem making friend. Even though she is grumpy, people still like her and want to hang out with her.  On the minus side, I think this means she may end up being a Mean Girl.  Great.

No comments: