The difference between a third grader and a kindergartner...

I had to laugh when I realized another huge difference between my kids, and I'm sure it has a lot to do with what grade they are in school. We all remember how exciting it is to start something new, to have new friends and not be so burned out all the time. After awhile, though, that tends to go away, and we get lost in the monotony of it all.

My fun, crazy Nick is always trying to find a way to get out of school. He enjoys it once he's there, don't get me wrong, but this third grader has done everything from sticking his finger down his throat to make himself throw up....to hiding my phone before I wake up so I won't hear my alarm and take him to school. When he is genuinely sick, he milks it for as long as he can, and he's called me multiple times from school for silly things like "I accidentally jumped...I mean fell into a big puddle and now I'm all wet. Can you come get me so I can go home and change my clothes" and I know he thinks of this kind of stuff just to get out of school for a few minutes. He cracks me up, but sometimes it's a bit much to fight such a big kid every morning just to get him to school. I'm afraid to see what junior high and high school will bring.

And then there's Bella, the zealous kindergartner. She loves to go to school, misses her teacher and friends on the weekends, and can't even fathom the thought of summer vacation without a tear rolling down her cheek. She has a BFF (and when I asked her what BFF meant, thinking my 5 year old just heard the expression and didn't really know the meaning, she said "Best Friend Forever, duh!), and she considers this BFF her sister. It's so cute. This week, she started getting sick. It started out with a little cough that I blamed on an ill-advised February (outdoor) swimming day with daddy.....a story for another day, I'm sure. It continued through the week though, and by Thursday afternoon, it was obvious that she was really sick and needed to stay home from school on Friday so we could go see her doctor. Friday morning, after a long night of coughing and throwing up, her temperature read 103.4 and I had to tell her that she really wasn't going to school. This little girl cried her eyes out.

"I wanna go to schoooooool, mooooooom! Jenica is going to wear her 'I love my BFF' shirt today, and I have to be there!" This continued on and on, until I convinced her that I would talk to Jenica's mom and ask her to wear her BFF shirt next week sometime, so Bella could see it. She was still mad that she had to miss school because of a little thing like strep, but as long as Jenica would wear her BFF shirt next week, she would find a way to emotionally manage this interruption in her life.

This is the difference between 3rd graders and kindergartners.....one finds a way to get out of going to school by any means possible, the other has an emotional breakdown if you interrupt their school schedule in the slightest. Kids crack me up.