First grade is tough. No more story circle. No more nap time.
Six-year-old Sophie Mullins, a first grade student at Gauley River Elementary in Craigsville, West Virginia, thought that she and her classmates were being overworked, so she did what any aggrieved constituent would do: she wrote a letter to her State Senator Joe Manchin.
Sophie got the idea from her father, who suggested that she wrote her State Senator with her grievances. "She'd say, 'Daddy, there's so much work to do, all we do is work,' and he said, 'Well, you need to write your congressman,' " Sophie's mother Sarah Mullins told WSAZ.
"Dear Sir," the young Ms. Mullins wrote, "All we do is work, work, work. I need a break. Can you please help?"
Manchin, ever concerned about his constitutents' well being, picked up the phone and called Sophie at school:
"You're working all the time, aren't you?" asked Manchin in the videotaped call that his office posted on YouTube. "So what I'm doing is, see, I'm giving you a break right now. I wanted you to take a little bit of time off since you worked so hard."
"If you work hard, it's going to pay off," Manchin said, urging her to "keep working hard on your studies so you get smarter so you can help us."
The call only lasted a few minutes, but Sophie's mother told WSAZ that it was important to Sophie, who said "Yes, I wrote a letter and talked to people, and the senator listened to me."
See? Calling your representative works! Though I hate to tell ya, kid, get used to it: work doesn't get any better when you're grown up.