Fifth Grade Brings a Two Huge Changes

Fifth grade was definately the beginning of my awkward stage, as this picture shows. My goal was to have hair all the way down to my rear end. It took me several years to figure out long hair and curly hair rarely go hand-in-hand.

This is the seventh post in a series called Mommy’s Piggy Tales that chronicles my youth. To read the rest, visit Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6.

For the second time in my young life, I packed up every earthly belonging, put my dog in a crate with a tranquilizer pill, and boarded an airplane with my family. My dad’s job required us to move once again. I cried this time, because moving is always hard. I knew nothing about the new place we would be moving to. I knew no one there. Yet, I was ready to leave all of the schools of Massachusetts behind. At the beginning of fifth grade I returned to the first public school I attended when we moved there, making six schools in three years.

(My mom made the BEST costumes - this was halloween just before our move and I was a horse)

This move proved to be a monumental time in my family’s life. We moved to the Kansas City, Missouri area knowing no one. This time we got an apartment first, giving us time to find a school and church before buying a house and settling down. My parents wanted more stability for us, and they wanted to know the lay of the land before purchasing a home.

I don’t remember much about our move to Missouri or the early parts of fifth grade. We must have moved in the early winter or fall, because I know I celebrated my fifth-grade birthday in that apartment.

We hadn’t been in Missouri long when my mom and dad decided it was time to get serious about finding a school for us to attend. We had already started attending a church, but it did not have a school. One day when my mom drove to the cable company store to pay a bill or set up our cable account at our apartment, she saw the sign for a Christian school. It was a large building that looked quite nice and wasn’t too far from our apartment. We scheduled a tour.

The school must have impressed us, because they enrolled me not long after that. The way I see God’s hand in this part of my story is in the fact that the school was part of a Baptist church. My parents had ideas in their heads about Baptists, and there was no way we would have attended a Baptist church at that time in our lives. But the school was right, and they put me in.

Soon, we found the church we were attending had some ideas that we did not agree with based on what we saw in the scripture. When they told us that we would be looking for a new church, I asked if we could try the church with my Christian school. After all, I had made some friends there that also attended the church.

We did. Not long after that, we became members. Of a Baptist church.

It was at that church and school that I solidified many of my beliefs about the Bible and my personal relationship with my Savior. It was by no means perfect, but it was a good place for our family to heal and get grounded in our faith after the turmoil of our life in Massachusetts. I am so thankful that for whatever reason, my parents did not see the word “Baptist” on that church sign when they saw the school that first day. It was also at this Christian school and church that I met Adventure Mom Janna, but that’s another story I have already written.

Two memories outside of the move stick out to me from fifth grade. One is a silly one. My teacher, Miss “D” (I will start using abbreviations now since these are people who still know me), had a game that she let us do if we had good behavior. At the end of the day if the class had behaved, we got to pop a balloon that was hanging on the wall. The balloons had activities inside, such as “Mismatch day” or “extra recess.” One of the days was “Crazy Sock Day.” Most of my friends came to school with mismatched socks or wild socks. Not me. My mom always helped me go all out for these types of days. I had pinned socks all over my outfit, and even put my hair in pig tails with socks over them. I loved being involved in these types of things!

Another memory is a bit more poignant. IN the first church we attended I won some money to spend in the children’s church store. I purchased with that money a “Best Friend” necklace. I had always wanted to have a best friend I could give a Best Friend necklace to. (These were heart-shaped pendants with the words “Best Friends” on them that were cut into two pieces. You would give your best friend one half and you would wear the other, and then they would fit together to form the heart and words.) Obviously, I didn’t have a best friend since I had just moved there. So, I left the other half of the necklace on the patio outside of our apartment and prayed that God would take it because He was my best friend. Deep down I knew that it would still be there in the morning, but my child-like faith was hoping He would do a miracle and take it. I remember a feeling of sadness when I found it there in the morning. I wish I could remember what my parents did to help me understand that those are not the types of miracles God does today, but I can’t.

I am participating in a project called Mommy’s Piggy Tales. To learn more stories about other wonderful women, visit the link in the button.