My oldest niece is in middle school now ("oh my gosh stop it Eli no way you look so young" "omg stop you guys!"). This means that she is transitioning from school activities and performances for which there is a direct correlation between cute and disaster to activities and performances that showcase legit talent. I think this is because by the time you hit middle school you can't rely on being cute anymore to get you through these things.
Because puberty.
Puberty is not cute, you guys.
OBVIOUSLY I'm not talking about your kid. Your middle schooler is obviously the exception and is oh my gosh so cute srsly.
But all of the other kids in the world that are in middle school: no more relying on their Gerber Baby faces. They have to start putting up something of value or they'll get eaten up by this monster of a world the rest of us created for them.
So tonight I attended my niece's middle school choir concert. To be clear, my niece is a perfect being of wonder and light and she has never and will never do anything wrong and if I knew how to work a camera, I would have been pushing parents out of the way at the front of the auditorium tonight to get an HD video of her breathing during tonight's performance. This niece was born on my birthday (OMG today (Wednesday)! Hashtag cake! Hashtag hard to know when it's my birthday because always cake!).
And because she was born on my birthday, she shall always be my favorite. Not just my favorite niece. Favorite. That includes, literally everything. I value her above the freaking Magna Carta. And in 10 years when I'm too old to take care of myself anymore, I will select her as the one who will change my diapers. (Until then I'm having the plant lady at the office do this).
But as I sat for eleventy hundred hours tonight and watched 200 different combinations of middle school kids perform 6,725 songs, I was assaulted with the horrors of puberty. Those awkward children stared at us with terror in their eyes and "awkward" written all over their faces (besides your very specific child and my perfect niece, obviously). And suddenly I had a 3-year-long flashback run through my mind in exactly ten seconds.
I saw my awkward 12-year-old self standing one foot shorter than nearly every girl in my class. I relived dances wherein all the girls stood in an uncomfortable gaggle in the middle and the boys played tag around the perimeter. I could smell the toxic onslaught of whatever was our version of Axe Body Spray back in 1997.
And it hit me.
These are the true heroes.
The 13-year-old kids who face this cruel world every day with smiles on their faces that currently don't fit their bodies. Or any body at all.
And they don't just face the world--they embrace it. They get up on a stage and sing their changing voices out. They befriend one another, they laugh, they enjoy things.
You guys. If a 13-year-old can make it through a day, so can you.
Now please. Tell me something you remember about middle school.
~It Just Gets Stranger
This is amazing, absolutely they are the heroes. Let them all eat cake! Mostly what I remember from middle school is the Macarena. And my daughter (second grade) came home from school a while ago and said "watch this dance I have learned momma!" I watched in wonder as she did the Macarena. It lives on. Incredibly, it lives on.
ReplyDeleteHaha. Jill learned the Macarena at school, too. They used it to teach the months of the year.
DeleteYour nieces' and nephews' ages have nothing to do with your own. My oldest nephew is a year and a half younger than me. The next is two and a half years younger than me. I'm closer in age to three of my nieces and nephews than I am to five of my brothers and sisters. It makes for an interesting family dynamic. And by interesting I mean that we never talk.
ReplyDeleteBTW - Happy birthday a day late to your niece!
My favorite memory of middle school happened during my last few months of middle school, and no it was not because I was almost out of there, at least not directly. All the kids in my grade went to a water park, and instead of hanging out with the girls who I usually hung around because I was too shy to make friends on my own, I spent the whole trip making an acquaintance into a friend.
ReplyDeleteMy fiance teaches middle school social studies and has informed me that all of his students, especially the girls, are all sociopaths. None of them are nice to one another, and none of them know why they act in the cruel, heartless ways they do. Many of them want to be nice or get it together, but instead spit at one another through doors, or throw things while the teacher is watching or LIGHT FIRES ON DESKS AFTER CLAIMING THEY ARE DRAGONS. They are slightly less crazy when they get to high school (what I teach), but still crazy on the hormones.
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing anyone survives this experience.
Oh my goodness!
DeleteMy middle school principal told my mom the same thing. Middle-school girls are sadistic. (Not every last one, of course, but as a generalization.) High school was no fun but middle school was hideous. YAY COLLEGE.
DeleteA girl put gum in my hair after school one day and when I told my friend the next morning, he yelled at her and threatened her in front of our whole English class. Two years later (in 8th grade) this same girl came up to me and said I better watch my back because Latosha (my best friend in 2nd grade) wanted to kick my *#$. All I said was, "Ok, if she needs me she knows where to find me." P.S. By the way, she never did.
ReplyDeleteI remember one hot summer day in band practice. It was practice time so we each had to go off somewhere and practice. My band teacher said someone could practice in his office so I took the opportunity. Well it was after lunch and I must have had some food that made me a bit gassy, but I was the only one in the office so who cares? I stunk up the office pretty good and then left in hopes that the smell would dissipate quickly. It did not. My band teacher went back in his office, came back out and yelled at the whole class, "Who had blasted gas in my office!?!?! It reeks in there!!!"
ReplyDeleteMiddle school, and 7th grade specifically, was the most horrible time of my life. You couldn't pay me any amount of money to repeat the 7th grade. Kids in middle school have so much happening that is so confusing. Hormones, growth spurts, etc. and it makes them miserable and they in turn attempt to make everyone around them miserable. They're just plain mean to each other and I think most of the time they have no idea why. A quote from my niece explains it perfectly. She once, in the midst of a fit of weeping, when my sister was trying to understand what was wrong, just wailed "I don't even know why I'm crying!!!"
ReplyDeleteI have a daughter in middle school right now and another one really close. My world is chaos. I have to keep reminding myself of my attitude when I was that age. Because if I don't, my wonderful child will be thrown into next week. It's so difficult to be that age. I remember trying desperately to NOT be noticed for fear of saying something idiotic. I remember going to a sleepover and being the first one to fall asleep and having pranks pulled on me. Then awful rumors spread about me. Needless to say, I did not enjoy my middle school years. However, when my child is not screaming at me because I know nothing, I can see the beauty that she is, with the confidence I wish I had had during that time. Hopefully, we will get through this.
ReplyDeleteI have blocked all memories of middle school. It was that horrific. All I remember is I went to Bingham middle one year,(yes, I am that old) Joel P. Jensen the next and Elk Ridge the last year.
ReplyDeleteI actually thought this was going to be a post about how you finally hit puberty. I like this though, thanks for the insight
ReplyDeleteI did too. I guess there's always next year... ^_^
DeleteHappy Birthday Eli and to your niece. Pretty special to both be born on the same day.
ReplyDeleteMiddle school is such an awkward time. And kids really are so mean then.
ReplyDeleteI remember going on a field trip that involved fishing. I did not want to catch a fish. But I did. Then my teacher took a picture of me with a fish. Then I started to cry, because I killed a fish. That picture ended up on the bulletin board in the hallway for a few months. Good memories . . .
I remember being sooo embarrassed because I called my Industrial Tech teacher "dad."
I remember getting the part of Annie in "Annie" and then overhearing my rival tell her friends that I got the part NOT because I sang and danced better than her but because I was more flat chested and looked more like an orphan.
That said, the friends I did make in middle school are still some of my life long friends. Because, you know, we survived together.
I met my hubby in middle school, only by "met" I mean got-kicked-in-the-shins-inadvertently-during-a-fight-he-had-with-another-boy. The other boy lost, big time, and for me it was less love at first sight, and more holymotherofsteeltoedbootswhatwasthat??
ReplyDeleteAnd my middle school teachers were the CRAZY ones. Bop on over to my blog (click on my name) and search "Tokyo Rose" for one story of insanity.
I have PTSD from middle school. My family moved from Nevada to Ohio the summer before 7th grade. I went from living in a big city to going to school LITERALLY in the middle of cornfields. Not only was that horrible enough, but I was making the switch from tiny, private Christian school to public school. I had braces and frizzy hair from the new-to-me humidity. I was a foot taller than everyone else in school. It was my first time being able to go to a school without a dress code, and I had NO IDEA what was in style or what to wear. It was awful and horrible and terrible. I'm shuddering in horror just typing all this.
ReplyDeleteSo, just to clarify...in 10 years your plant lady will change your diapers until your niece can take over? Or your plant lady does it now and in 10 years your niece will take over?
ReplyDeleteYes.
DeleteMy husband and son went to the maturation program at school the other day to discuss the whole puberty process. Made for great dinner conversation! My son was much more worried about what was going to be happening to the girls than the boys and I'm not quite sure he believes it.
ReplyDeleteI was hot mess in middle school, I was homeshcooled from 3rd-7th grade and had no clue what was cool when I went back to public school in the 8th. I didn't know much slang, so a lot of the time I was really lost when people talked to me. Fortunately I went back to the school I left and knew people, but it took SO long to adjust. I didn't have braces yet, so my teeth were all over the place. Flat irons weren't yet a "thing"... so frizzy hair galore. I was awkward and sassy and so emotional, because hormones. And if I have to be real honest, I pretty much stayed that way until I was a sophomore in high school when my mom bought me flat iron because she was tired of me crying about hair, the braces came off, got my driver's license, and I figured out makeup. I'm sort of glad I didn't have to experience 6th and 7th grade in public school. Coincidentally most (if not all) pictures from those three year have mysteriously disappeared.
ReplyDeleteFirst bad memory was trying to fit in with the two coolest kids in school, we'll call them Joel and Camille. I was a year younger but we had a class together. One day I went up to talk with them and they were talking about how incredibly perfect their teeth were and how they would never need braces. Meanwhile I'm freaking out because I'm going to get my braces on the very next day. The only consolation came years later when Joel was injured playing sports in college and had to have braces after getting hit really hard in the face.
ReplyDeleteLater that year, I decided to ask Camille to dance with me during the Valentine's dance. The dance was almost over and the song started slowly, so several people asked a partner to dance and started dancing. But after the first 32 bars, the song turned into a jump around rock style song. Most people stopped dancing, and Camille offered to dance the next slow song with me, but I was too nervous so we kept slow dancing and literally the entire school watched. When I saw Camille two years later on my first day of high school, she had transformed like Olivia Newton John in Grease and was literally wearing all black leather. 😍 PS. I was still in braces. 😭
Church camp. I wore a life jacket in the swimming hole because I wasn't confident in my swimming abilities and I'm scared of murky water. A life jacket, you guys. I was 12. And my mom tried an asymmetrical perm like Molly Ringwald and it didn't work. So, to recap, asymmetrical straight hair and an orange life jacket on a stick figure in a swimming hole. Life was grand.
ReplyDeleteYaaay memories!!!
ReplyDeleteIn middle school I had a ton of firsts :)
First boyfriend
First kiss
Lots of ditch parties
First Raves (but back then they were called "Underground parties" and you had to have the info to the place that had the info to the actual location of the party) So fun!
Middle school was so much fun! So was high school.
But raising a middleschooler :/
Ugh! The knowitall attitude from my oncesoobedientbaby is rough. When does this end? Snarky boys are not fun.
Happy birthday Eli and Eli's niece! Mine is next week, and I shall be 32, so I guess I had better find a good diaper changer too.
ReplyDeleteMiddle school for me was awful. So awful. I was awkward and had braces and got straight A's so I was not cool. One day one of the "cool" girls came up to me and gave me a pat on the back and said, "I bet one day you'll be so pretty." Also we had lockers for gym class and someone kept leaving me deodorant and breath mints in mine. I spent so many nights crying to my mom how I must smell bad and I brushed my teeth 100x a day just to make sure my breath wasn't bad. Ugh, kids are so cruel at that age! Especially girls!
That happened to me in high school! A girl told me that some day I'll be pretty like my sister. Thanks!?
DeleteLady times. I had not yet mastered lady times and I was one of the first in my class to experience it. There were a lot of instances of me walking around with a sweatshirt tied around my waist, is what I'm saying.
ReplyDeleteI remember that horror too! Why was it so hard to figure out?
DeleteOMG that was me too....I was just trying to figure out how do I post about THAT since that was my worst middle school experience. Seriously every month I had at least one day with a sweatshirt tied around my waist, or madly asking girlfriends to "check me" when I stood up. It didn't help any that my mother does not believe in tampons (TSS and all that was HUGE when she was younger) so she was scared to death of them. I had to have my best friends mom teach me how to use them when I was 18 and it literally changed by life. And now I'm going to post this an "Anonymous" since I'm too embarrassed STILL!!!
DeleteThat still happens with high school girls, too... Those poor girls...
DeleteI can't remember a single thing about middle school...was it that horrific that I blocked it out?! Oh!! CRICKETS!! We had to eat cooked crickets for my science class one day!! They tasted like burnt popcorn...one of the boys ate chocolate chip cricket cookies for I think extra credit...Oh! I also made a terrible, puny song about the milk way and Milkway Bars,also for science class...the same year.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in 6th grade my mom had one of her friends 8th grade girls come and hang out with me when she went to her Bridge game one night. We had so much fun together, listening to records all night and I thought I'd made a cool new friend. That is until my mom came home and PAID HER for babysitting for me!!!
ReplyDeleteMy Mom wouldn't let me wear shorts in the middle of Utah winters (mean, huh?) and so I would bring my one pair of Girbaud shorts to school and change in the bathroom before classes. Also, I used so much hairspray when the wind blew my bangs would move in one solid piece. I was a beauty for sure.
ReplyDeleteDid you sit through a snooze fest of a May Day Law Day Lunch on Magna Carta a few years ago? It will be forever burned into my mind that you don't have to say THE Magna Carta....the translation itself literally means "The Great Charter". Why or why do I have brain cells devoted to that? And why oh why can't we just ONCE have an exciting May Day Law Day speaker???????
ReplyDeleteI can still remember the Pledge of Allegiance in Spanish because I had Spanish first period in 8th grade. That was a good 20 years ago. Ugh.
ReplyDeleteCan I just say that middle school/junior high is completely the worst? I hated it so much. I did better in high school, but junior high was ROUGH.
Also, middle school teachers are angels sent from heaven. I have no idea how they do it.
Alcohol. So much alcohol.
DeleteNOT THAT WE KNOW WHAT THAT IS, CATHIE!
All I got out of middle school Spanish was how to sing La Bamba...
DeleteAnd then in high school Japanese I learned how to sing Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes and say "I ate the baby; it was delicious".
Oh gosh! The Pledge of Allegiance!! I had to say the Pledge of Allegiance over the intercom for student government and I COMPLETELY FORGOT IT!! I'm pretty sure I started saying a praying part way through because I ended with amen...
DeleteOh, middle school. So many memories of kindness and awkwardness.
ReplyDeleteThere was a girl in my sixth grade class who was far more athletic than I. On Fridays, we had to run a mile in PE. She decided one day to be my running buddy; she'd slow down and run at my pace, then encourage me to keep going when I wanted to stop. No reason or incentive; she just did! In eighth grade, I also got talked into joining the no-cut track team with my friends. I figured I could be a thrower, because I hate running. Turns out I wasn't good at throwing events, and they desperately needed distance runners to qualify at meets. So I was talked into being a body so the good athletes could qualify. I always came in last, but my team always ran along the sidelines cheering me on to finish!
Then there was the time my friends were arguing over who would open the door to the band classroom and yanked it open right into my forehead. I got a large bump and my seventh grade teacher called me Lumpy.
Middle school involved first dances, first band concerts, first kisses. It involved sports teams (I was JV volleyball, not bad at every sport!!). Some of my favorite teachers were in middle school. Everyone thinks it's the worst time but I have nothing but fond memories of that time!
After surviving my oldest daughter's middle school years, I now realize why they have such things as boarding schools or in some cultures, they marry their girls off young. Those girls be crazy!
ReplyDeleteI had a teacher that was so obviously annoyed at basically anything any one of his middle school students would do nearly 100% of the time. I kind of wonder how he ended up teaching that age at all. If the kids in class started talking too much, he would stop everything, angrily slam down whatever was in his hands at the moment, be it chalk, eraser, book, yard stick, etc., and yell "feet flat on the floor, sit up straight, hands together, do. Not. Move. Or. Make. A. Sound." While literally foaming at the mouth. Then he would sit at his desk seething for a few minutes while his classroom of kids were like statues in their seats. It was frightening and also giggle-inducing. If he caught you giggling, you were most likely sent to the principal's office. Haha, kinda don't blame the guy, that age group can be rough on the nerves at times.
ReplyDeleteI also remember CK One being the cool perfume/cologne that everyone, boy or girl, would wear. Oh the memories.
I think we had the same teacher. I sat in the front and he always talked about wanting to hook the desks to an electric system so he could zap the naughty kids. Rumor was he had a kkk tattoo. He was at least 70 and still teaching.
DeleteSorry...I'm confused about the part where you said you won't be able to take care of yourself anymore in ten years because I didn't realize you had STARTED taking care of yourself...
ReplyDeleteBOD Body Spray was totally our version of Axe back then and I was one of the worst offenders. It came in a Windex-style bottle and a single spritz would soak your shirt and make your neck glisten. I used to crank so much of that stuff on that I looked like I had just run a marathon and sweated through my shirt... But it was the BOD... That stuff was POTENT too!!! Literally spraying once into your hand, dipping ONE finger into the puddle that would form in your palm, and dabbing that finger along your neck would be strong enough to clear out an auditorium, but I remember cranking 6-7 sprays directly onto my body/clothes. They still make it and just a whiff of Really Ripped Abs (I know, awful name, but it was my signature scent) can take me right back to puka shell necklaces, Hawaiian shirts, frosted tips, super wide leg jeans, techno vests, Dep styling gel (or L.A. Looks), and Aqua Net hairspray along with flashbacks to the most awkward and self-conscious years of my life.
ReplyDeleteI'll skip reminiscing on my own middle school years and praise the heros of middle school that I witnessed on Saturday. My 8 year old niece's gymnastics class was having a recital (Who even knew that was a thing?) and she needed a ride. Miss Pat's Dance School & Gymnastics was doing their annual recital for all ages and all classes. You guessed it, Emma's class was the very last one - 2 hours later! Despite my misgivings when it began with the transformer blowing and the back up generator only running the lights, it was actually incredible and entertaining. So the heros of this show was a trio of girls that I noticed first in the tap class. Maybe they were best friends. Maybe they were supposed to be less conspicuous lined up this way. Whatever the reason, next to each other in the back row on the very end was 1) the smallest girl in their class - tiny, 2) the 6'2" middle-schooler with arms that literally looked as long as her legs, and 3) the chubby girl (She looked exactly like me in middle school! Enough reminicing!) And here is why they are heros. The were in tap, pointe, ballet, jazz, and gymnastics. All three of them in the same formation and they were obviously better at some things than others, but man they were performing and trying their hearts out! No matter all the "perfects" in the front row or anywhere else on the stage, my eyes always went to them when they came on stage. They were amazing!
ReplyDeleteI can't remember much of middle school because the cloud of Calgon Turquoise Seas I lived in ate most of my brain cells.
ReplyDeleteSadly, due to some rather unfortunate photos (one of which my mother has HANGING ON A WALL IN HER HOME) I do remember the bleach blonde (read: mustard YELLOW) mullet with dark brown roots I sported in the 8th grade. And the orange Hawaiian shirt that I wore at least once a week. And how I coveted my best friends JNCO jeans so hard because I knew they would be the perfect compliment to my silver holographic puffy vest.
I looked very much like Mark McGrath in middle school, despite being an 5 1/2 foot 80 lb girl. :(
I was completely terrified of my "math" teacher. I say that in quotes, because he would rarely teach math. He would generally ramble on about his own past life experiences (think Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite)
ReplyDeleteWhen he finally did buckle down and attempt a math lesson, he would snidely call on people who probably couldn't answer the questions and that was usually me. I was so horrified that I would stay in the girls bathroom on test days just to avoid the sneer.
He also had outbursts of temper, like when we didn't respectfully listen to his stories for the umptyelevetieth time. This resulted in erasers being thrown at the perpetrators face. I distincly remember the "thwack" sound of that eraser back smacking into a boys teeth.
He even one time dangled someone out of the second story window by their ankles. I don't know how this man retained his job. Helicopter parenting wasn't a thing then. We were on our own! Maybe it is that 8th grade math teaching is so bad that there were no other options for the school to hire.
In any case, as one who has passed puberty and calls herself a full fledged adult with her own children in the vortex of middle school, I still have nightmares about this man. Waaaaa
I'm not sure how I missed this post, Eli, except maybe the mild Depression I'm in kept me away. Here's my junior high (no, I never went to "middle school") story: http://kickinaroundideas.blogspot.com/2013/12/my-stint-in-juvie.html
ReplyDeleteIt's much too much for me to actually write out here, in your comments, since I blogged it way back in the day. It turned out all right in the end, but it was harrowing in the moment! ... and the Grammar Nazi in me just now got SERIOUSLY peeved at Google for suggesting that "all right" is incorrect (and offering "alright" in its place, which hurts my brain). !!!!