This Thing Called Kindergarten

And here we are.  The first week of Kindergarten has drawn to a close and the second week is about to start.  Snags seems to be enjoying his new elementary school and his life as a Kindergarten student.  It’s different than preschool in a number of ways, but one difference in particular has Snags especially impressed.  Witness the conversation we had at breakfast this morning:

Snags:  “Know what I’m surprised about in elementary school?  That the toilet paper dispenser, if you’re running out of toilet paper, will just drop down a new roll that was up there, already unwrapped, that nobody’s used before!”

Me: “It wasn’t like that at preschool?” 

Snags: “No.”

Me: “What did you do if you ran out of toilet paper at preschool?”

Snags: “Called the teacher.  And you know what they gave you?  Tissues!” (and here you should note that the word “Tissues!” is said with disdain).

In the evenings, my husband and I ask Snags about his day while we all eat dinner together.  Over the past week, we’ve interrogated Snags enough to find out that the Kindergarteners practiced what to do for a fire drill.  They had a fire drill.  They drew pictures.  They participated in a scavenger hunt.  They played a copy cat game. 

Snags offered to teach me a new song he had learned in music class, but he claimed to need “those little Hawaiian drums that are stuck together” to do so. “Bongos?” I inquired. But he didn’t know what they were called.  Whatever they are, we don’t have any, so he retracted his offer. I’m a little sad that he refuses to sing me the song until I get a hold of the proper kind of drums.  But in the back of my mind I wonder if this isn’t all just a ploy on his part to get me to buy him some drums. 

In gym class they tossed beanbags in the air, “no higher than your nose or they’d blow the whistle at you.”  And finally, Snags walked another child to the nurse’s office.  “Why?” I asked.  “What happened?  Why did he need to go to the nurse?”  I don’t know,” Snags said. “I think his lip was bleeding.”  I’m still not clear if this incident was in any way related to the beanbag tossing.

Who do you sit with at lunch?” I asked one evening.

“My friends,” Snags replied.

“Yes,” I said.  “But what are their names?”  

“I don’t know.” He said with a shrug.  “I have to ask them.”

And later:

“Who did you play with on the playground?” I asked.  But Snags wasn’t telling.  “James?”  I prodded. “Did you play with James?”  Finally, he said yes, he had played with James.  “And guess who I saw?” He demanded.  “Who?”  I asked. “Megan?  No?  Okay, Andrew!” I guessed.  But no.  It wasn’t Andrew.  I couldn’t think of any other neighborhood children he might have seen on the playground.  But I didn’t have to keep guessing for long… 

“I saw three bounty hunters, two people from the dark side, and a person with 100 light sabers!” Snags proclaimed.

And that’s when I choked on my mac-n-cheese. 

This school… I don’t know.  I thought it was a good place, but bounty hunters on the playground?  Here? In suburbia?

Still, I was feeling pretty proud of Snags, so I thought it would be nice if, to celebrate the end of a successful first week of school, I made his favorite dinner of barbeque brisket and gave him a small gift.

I settled on buying him a Star Wars action figure.  He was happy with the special dinner and even more delighted with his gift, but the delight soon turned into something else altogether.  Because before I knew it, he was arguing with me.  Snags wanted to use the action figure to build a Star Wars model.  And not only that, he wanted the model to be permanent, the figure forever frozen in place with glue! 

His model parts included a toy bug habitat that he had busted the insides out of, and his brand new Boba Fet action figure.  Only Snags calls him Bobo Fat, like he’s some kind of overweight circus clown.  But I wasn’t agreeable to letting Boba Fet, only 3 days old in our house now, get ruined by a five year old with a bottle of Elmer’s. 

Eventually Snags dropped his insistence on the need for glue and decided that tape!  Scotch tape! Could be used to secure “Bobo Fat” into his model like he wanted.  I consented to the tape, since it’s a much less permanent method, and I handed over the dispenser.  I watched for a while as Snags proceeded to cover up all of the vent holes on top of the bug habitat. 

“What are you doing?”  I asked.

“I’m killing him!”  Snags said.

“What?!”  I shrieked, horrified. “Don’t talk like that!” I said.  “That’s not nice at all.”

“I have to kill him,” he replied calmly. “He tried to kill Luke! I have to cover up all the air holes so he can’t breathe and he’ll die.”

I looked at my husband.  What should we do?  I pleaded with my eyes.  Who should we call?  The police?  A shrink?  I don’t think this is right, I tried to say.

But my husband, nonplussed about it all, just shrugged.

So I gave in.  “Fine!” I said.  “But don’t use all the tape trying to kill something that’s not even alive in the first place,” I added. And then I left the room.  I could hear Snags’ laughter in the background.  

Later, Snags brought his Star Wars model to me.  It was all sealed up with every possible crack covered.  Entrapped in the model without air Bobo Fat doesn’t stand a chance.  And since there’s no way to slip him any food, Bobo Fat might lose a bit of weight in there too.  I’ll check after Snags get’s home from Kindergarten tomorrow.