Category Archives: Kindergarten

June 4, 2008 · 9:35 pm

Forty

Wow. So I’m turning forty in a few days. 40. 40!

But you know, I don’t FEEL forty. And I don’t think I LOOK forty.

Except a few things that have happened over the past few days have really made me question how I am perceived by others.

There is this: A dermatologist gave me a prescription for Retin A to try and combat the oily skin I’ve had my.entire.life. I read in a magazine that there are things you can actually do now to try and reduce the oily shine besides wiping it off your face every half an hour, your carefully applied makeup being wiped away along with it. So I decided to see a dermatologist. And he said Retin A is the best thing out there for this, my shiny face.

But when I dropped my prescription off at the pharmacy, the person behind the counter asked how old I was and then said with a half smile-half sneer on her face, “Well you know, your insurance won’t pay for this. They don’t pay for Retin A for anyone over 35 because it was developed as an acne medication for TEENAGERS but older women started using it when they discovered it helps diminish their wrinkles…” And she nearly harrumphed as she smiled at me in her pharmacy coat with her gray hair up in a bun. I just stood there, nearly dumbfounded, until I finally managed to say, “Well, my doctor prescribed it for me, so I’d like to fill the prescription anyway.”

And then there is this: I was telling some co-workers about my son, and how he had taken our calendar off the refrigerator and written “START” in the box for June 1, and “END” in the box for November 30th. And then he drew a line through all the days in between to show that hurricane season will be occurring during that time. One of the co-workers, whom I don’t know very well, turned to me and said, “What does your son do?”

“What does he DO?” I asked, perplexed. “Well, he goes to Kindergarten.”

“Oh!” the co-worker said. “I thought he was working or studying something in college…”

And then, possibly realizing he might have just insulted me, he backpedaled and said, “Or high school. Do they learn about hurricane season in high school? But, oh, I didn’t know he was in kindergarten. Hmmm…” he trailed off.

And so I wonder, do I LOOK old enough to have a child in high school? Or worse, college?

Technically, yes, I admit it’s possible that I am old enough to have a child in high school or college. I recently connected with some former high school classmates and many of them have children who are teenagers, juniors and seniors in high school, a few with children in college.

That could have been me. If I had had my son when I was 25, well, he’d be 15 now, and studying hurricanes in high school. Maybe. If they study hurricanes in high school. Or, if I had had him when I was 20, he’d be 20 now himself, and studying hurricanes in college in between all the drinking at frat parties and chasing girls around campus. Ahem…

But I didn’t. I was 33 when my son was born. He’ll be seven this fall. He’ll be in first grade, studying hurricanes.

And me? I’ll be trying to cure this oily skin, skin that seems more fitting for a teenager, with Retin A. And I’ll still be 40. Whether I like it, or feel it, or look it or not.

6 Comments

Filed under birthday, birthdays, identity, Kindergarten, life

May 28, 2008 · 2:12 pm

Field Day

Field Day. Did you have this when you were in school? A day, or maybe only half of a day, dedicated to being outside, on the playing fields around the school, participating in track and field events?

God, how I hated field day when I was a kid. I remember elementary school and the annual field day. It would be blistering hot outside and we were forced to participate in competitive sports: relay races, the 50-meter dash, the long jump, broad jump, an obstacle course, and then for fun, a tug-o-war. But the teachers kept score. They had stop watches and clip boards. The fastest runners, the best jumpers, they won medals and the praise of the teachers around them. The rest of us? Me? The loser(s). I wasn’t fast enough to win a race, couldn’t jump far enough to win a medal. So I’d trudge from event to event in the hot, hot sun with the added burn of shame on my shoulders, not good enough, not good enough. No medal. Not a winner. Not good enough.

And then, like to rub it in, I got to stand there as they built the teams for tug-o-war. Not fat, but somewhat chubby. Chubby enough to wait and wait and wait until they were running out of students and were looking for the anchors of the team. Here’s a hint. Just because a girl can pinch an inch, doesn’t mean she’s a hulk. It doesn’t mean she can pull your entire team of skinny high jumping fast kids from the brink of the mud puddle. So you shouldn’t all turn on her when she doesn’t whip out bionic arm powers and fling you all across the fields to the parking lot, away from the puddle. Get over it already.

No, I haven’t.

That was 1976… perhaps.

And now, it’s 2008. And my son’s elementary school does field day. “Oh, no!” I think. Not that. Anything, but that. All the old feelings of inadequacy come storming back. I don’t want my son to feel that way. I don’t want field day to be a bad memory for him too. I keep my mouth shut, but I shudder at the thought.

Parents are invited to watch the field day events. If participating in them isn’t bad enough, I think watching from the sidelines will be even worse. I can feel like a loser all over again even when I’m merely a spectator.

But I go anyway.

And who knew there were 20 different ways to hold a relay race? Field Day. It would be more apt to call it 20 Ways to Relay Day. There is the 911 Frog Relay where you pick up a large rubber frog wrapped in white bandages, and you run across the grass to drop him inside the hula hoop with the red tape in the shape of a hospital cross. And the Hamburger Relay where you run over to a desk masquerading as a grill, pick up a spatula, and slip over bean bags pretending to be hamburgers before you run back and tag your team mate. Then there is the Water Relay where you dip an overturned Frisbee into a bucket of water to fill it up like a platter, move as quickly as you can across an expanse of grass (with minimal spillage) to an empty bucket where you dump the Frisbee full of water. The team with the most water in the bucket wins, uh, nothing. But the kids get wet and they have fun anyway. Nobody is keeping score. Not the teachers. Not the 5th graders manning the stations. Not at the beach relay or the water sprinkler relay or the obstacle course. Not the kids who are covered in mud and don’t care. And not me. I’m just watching. And not feeling like a loser.

I catch the gym teacher and casually mention how much better this is than when I was a kid. “Competition,” she says, “Who needs it? This is just for fun.”

“Besides,” another teacher chimes in. “These kids,” she says, tilting her head at the running kindergarteners, “They can’t really follow rules. They cheat. It wouldn’t do any good to keep score. This is just for fun.”

Just for fun.

For fun.

FUN!

Later in the evening, when my son is home and the mud from the field has been washed off, we’re talking.

“Mom,” he says. “There is a game called Dodge Ball.”

“Yes,” I say. “I know. We used to play that in gym class when I was a kid. Why? Is your class playing Dodge Ball?”

“No,” He says, sounding relieved.

“Do you know how to play it?” I ask.

“I think people throw things at your head!” he says, alarmed.

“Well, they throw balls at you, but they aren’t supposed to throw them at your head,” I say. “Maybe at your chest or your legs. Definitely not at your head,” I say, and he audibly sighs.

He sounds relieved.

But then he offers a new twist on the old game: “I know what would be fun,” he says. “Dodge Cinderblocks!”

My eyes widen in alarm.

“You,” I say, pointing at him for emphasis, “Will NEVER be in charge of field day!”

And that, I think, is one game I won’t ever play. Even if it is for fun.

3 Comments

Filed under humor, kids, Kindergarten, life, parenting, Snags

May 1, 2008 · 1:26 pm

Pants Recommended

Call me lazy, but I am sick and tired of having to make decisions. Things that used to be simple have gotten crazily complicated. And I don’t like it.

Take… school picture day, for example. When I was a kid, you showed up at school and they took your picture. And that was it. Well, maybe the photographer insisted on combing your hair some stupid way you never wore it, but really, that was about it. Later, the pictures would come in, and you’d grimace at the way your hair looked in the photos, but there was nothing you could do about it except hope your mom didn’t choose that year’s school photo for her new silver frame sitting on the mantel.

That was then.

NOW you get a warning notice sent home from school about a week ahead of time, telling you that picture day is coming up. But that’s odd, because they just took school photos back in the fall. And the school year is only 180 days long… and you’re only a few weeks past the 100 day mark… Ah, but then, the children were dressed in FALL clothes then. And now it’s SPRING. Right? Or maybe, even though you are holding the flier in your hands, your husband is right, maybe it’s a flier for school picture “make up day”. For the kids who were sick or otherwise absent back in the fall. And they just forgot to put “make up day” on the flier. Yeah, that’s probably what it is. NOT.

Exactly 17 hours before picture day you get another reminder, complete with a small form that proudly states there is “No charge for picture day!” Your child will get their picture taken regardless, and you don’t have to pay a thing until the photos come home and you decide whether or not to buy them.

But nothing’s ever free. In lieu of parting with your hard earned cash on picture day, you have to choose which one of five poses is more ‘you’, or you know, more ‘your child’. And then you mark that box and send in the form so the photographer knows which way to position the kid before he snaps the photo. You can write any special instructions you want to the photographer on the form too. Like, “LEAVE THE HAIR ALONE!”

But this is where I fall apart. I can’t make decisions like this. Take the picture and send it to me. If I like, it I will fork over a kajillion dollars for a small package of two 5×7’s and eight wallet size photos. If I don’t like it, well, I’ve got a digital camera and I know how to use it.

But this, this… Pose 1 shows the child sitting in a chair. Pose 2 shows the child with chin in hand, bored like, but still smiling. Pose 3 shows the child lounging somewhat precariously across two bean bag chairs. Pose 4 has the child leaning on a bean bag chair with arms crossed, all defensive like, but still smiling. You lookin’ at me? And Pose 5 is simply the child’s face.

I think what threw me the most was Pose 3, where the child is sprawled across the bean bag chairs. A handy suggestion next to it says “Pants recommended!” And so I wonder if this has really been a problem. Do parents really send their children to school without any pants? Certainly that’s in violation of school dress codes, is it not? Or did the photo company do one too many photo shoots at an elementary school smack in the middle of a nudist camp? Or, perhaps, it’s a reminder to the photographers. Maybe some of them used to work for that magazine with the bunny ears.

I’m torn. Not one of the five poses is “Snags”. If they had a pose that said “Snags” it would be my child before bedtime, protesting my comment that he looks tired, all the while sucking on two fingers and holding his old tag blanket up to his nose so he can sniff one of his favorite tags. Only, the form doesn’t say, “favorite blankets recommended,” and I, having gone through school myself, have personal experience with school photographers. If they don’t want your hair parted on the left, they sure as hell aren’t going to let you shove a couple of fingers in your mouth and sniff on the tag of a blanket for your school photo. Not even if you have pants on.

3 Comments

Filed under humor, Kindergarten, life, parenting, Snags

April 21, 2008 · 11:47 am

Just This Side of Believing. Or Not.

Dear Tooth Fairy,

I thought I should warn you. I think your days are numbered. My six year old son, Snags, doesn’t seem to believe in you anymore. I don’t know why the sudden turn of events. Perhaps you didn’t leave him enough money last week when he lost his fourth tooth?

Or maybe it’s not really a turn of events at all. For a good year or two before he ever lost his first tooth he would argue with me, claiming there was no such thing as a tooth fairy. I wanted him to be a kid and benefit from the lie that there is such a thing, so I insisted he was wrong, that there was a tooth fairy. His dentist backed me up. She’s into lies like that. But looking back, maybe I should have caved then, admitted the truth, and saved myself some money.

Witness this conversation a few nights ago:

Snags: Mom, tell me the truth. Is there really a tooth fairy?

Me: (Indignant tone) Of course there is! (thinking, SHIT! Where is your father, now?) Why would you ask that?

Snags: Well, I think it’s really you and dad leaving me money.

Me: (Bewildered tone) Why would we do that?

Snags: Because you want to give me money? I think you get up in the middle of the night and give me money.

Me: Snags! Think about it. I don’t like to get up in the MORNING. I’m certainly not going to get up in the MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT to give you money!

Snags: Maybe dad does it.

Me: No, I’m sure he doesn’t. And besides, your friends Zane and Nicholas and Megan all lost teeth recently and they said the tooth fairy left them money too.

Snags: Maybe it was their parents leaving the money.

Me: (trying to confuse the issue) Well I certainly wouldn’t get up in the middle of the night to let their parents into our house!

Snags: I know there isn’t a tooth fairy because Mrs. V. told us when the tooth fairy leaves you money it’s really your parents doing it.

Me: (thinking “his Kindergarten teacher said WHAT?!”) Why would she say that? She LIED to you.

Snags: Well… she didn’t say that. I just said that to get you to admit there isn’t a tooth fairy. That’s okay. I believe in the tooth fairy anyway.

So anyway, as you can see, Snags is just on this side of belief. Or disbelief. I’m not sure. But it’s a knife-edge, and he’s wobbling. He wants the money, that much is obvious. But it’s also obvious that he doesn’t care who gives it to him. So long as he gets it.

3 Comments

Filed under childhood, humor, kids, Kindergarten, life, loose tooth, lost tooth, parenting, Snags, teeth, The Tooth Fairy

April 8, 2008 · 9:02 pm

A Letter to Lauren’s Mom

Dear Lauren’s Mom,

Hi. So, listen, I understand from my son, Snags, that your daughter, Lauren, was watching the news recently and heard that “a man is PREGNANT!” What a sweet daughter you have and how very kind of her to share that news with Snags and his classmates. His kindergarten classmates.

Snags didn’t really have many other details to share. It sounds as if Lauren was supposed to be doing her homework? And you made her turn the T.V. off right in the middle of that groundbreaking report? Snags thought the idea so prepopsterous that it might have been a joke, that the news people were trying to make people laugh, right? I suggested that perhaps the whole thing was an April Fool’s Day joke.

And might I suggest to YOU, that you, oh, unplug the friggin’ television set for the next nine months or so? Unless, of course, you plan to come to the elementary school and give a big detailed presentation about this to Snags and his classmates? Hey, maybe you could even work with the children to collect money to throw this man a baby shower…

Look, I’m actually a pretty liberal minded gal. I don’t particularly care which way the wind blows when it comes to personal preferences about how people live their lives. I think it’s nice that this man is pregnant. I hope the pregnancy goes smoothly and that baby sleeps though the night from the get go.

I just really don’t want to have to explain how a person gets pregnant to a six year old. And I especially don’t want to have to explain how a man got pregnant to a six year old. A six year old who knows that only women have babies…

When Snags is in middle school, well, sure then I’d be happy to explain this stuff. He’ll probably be picking up free condoms from the nurse’s office by then anyway. But right now, I’d just rather not go there. And so that is why I keep the television news turned OFF in my house. You might want to consider doing the same.

Oh, by the way, did Lauren tell you that I got my nose pierced? I didn’t know if Snags had mentioned it to her yet. If not, that’s okay. I’ll be chaperoning the upcoming planetarium field trip and she will get to see my nose piercing then. I’ll be sure to tell her ALL about it, and how she can be cool like me and get her very own nose piercing, too!

That should give you something to talk about over dinner Thursday night, don’t you think?

Sincerely,
Snags’ Mom

3 Comments

Filed under babies, kids, Kindergarten, motherhood, parenting, Snags

December 13, 2007 · 1:19 am

The Elf

It appears that we have a new addition to our household. It’s an elf. No, it’s not a short child. I can be cruel but I’m not that kind of cruel. Even if we had added a dwarf child to our family I would not go around introducing him as our elf, not even at Christmas time. This is a real live stuffed elf. And apparently, we’ve adopted him, although I have to be honest and admit it was not my intention to adopt anything. And certainly not an elf.

It’s the Kindergarten teacher’s fault. She told the children about some mischievous elves that came to her house in the night. Elves that did silly things. Elves that hung Halloween decorations on her Christmas tree. And then, she told the children how they could get their own elves. I wish I could say that you lure them with diamonds and pearls, but that’s not the way it works.

In fact, I’d never even heard about enticing elves to visit until Snags came home from school and started talking about it, telling me how we could attract elves to our house by luring them with crackers and water. “If you want Santa to come,” he said, “you leave out cookies and milk. But if you want the elves to come, you leave out crackers and water!” And then he set about arranging sixteen Ritz crackers and a plastic tumbler of ice water on top of a paper towel at our kitchen table. To lure the elves.

I forgot about the food sitting out on the table until a few hours later when I was heading up to bed. When I saw the crackers arranged so nicely I remembered Snags’ story, and his plan to attract an elf. If he caught one, he said, he’d keep it in a cage. Similar, I suppose, to a zookeeper or to those good parents – the ones I heard about on the news a while back, the ones who kept all of their children in cages…

Now I couldn’t disappoint him, so I shoveled the crackers in my mouth and dumped the water down the sink and sat down to think. I had two brand new Star Wars ornaments hidden away, ornaments I had planned to hang on the tree on Christmas Eve or give to Snags as a gift on Christmas morning. I decided to hang them on the tree and write a note to Snags from the elves. A note saying they’d put something on the tree for him to find, and they were off to do some mischief at other homes, and they’d be back to visit NEXT year.

Only, that wasn’t how the elves were supposed to work. It turned out that Snags hadn’t told me the entire story. He hadn’t told me the part of the story where the elves stayed at your house and looked like a stuffed elf by day, but at night, they came alive, consumed the crackers and water you left them, and performed acts of mischief, every night from December 1st until Santa takes them back to the North Pole on Christmas Eve.

And so, Snags woke up in the morning and ran down the stairs to look for elves. His sharp intake of breath at the sight of the missing crackers and overturned plastic tumbler that once held water for the elves, was so loud that I heard it upstairs, even with my head pressed into the pillow.

Snags ran up the stairs with the note: “Read this! Out loud!” he demanded. After I finished, he ran from my room and down the stairs to search the tree. He found the ornaments but he wasn’t appeased. He kept searching for more, for more evidence that the elves had been around. “Mom,” he asked, “Wasn’t this bag of dog treats on the other counter over here last night? I think the elves moved it.” “Mom,” he went on, “Who left this spoon in the sink? I think the elves did it. I’m going,” he said like Encyclopedia Brown, “to look for more clues.”

And so he went, room to room, hunting for clues, hunting for the elves. When it was time to leave for school, he was unhappy. He hadn’t found the elves. He could not keep them in a cage. If the elves weren’t staying at our house then he wanted them to take the ornaments back. Star Wars be damned.

An hour after school started I received an email from Snags’ teacher. Subject line: elves. “I thought you might want to check this out,” she had written. And then she had included a link to a site that explained the whole story of the mischief making elves, a site where you can order one of your very own. She went on to say she had bought an elf from a craft show, but that she’d seen similar ones for sale at a local store. I’m no dummy, I could read what was left unwritten: Snags told me about the elves that left the Star Wars ornaments on your tree. You did it WRONG! HERE is how you can make it right…

And that is how we ended up adopting our very own elf. My husband picked one up from the local store and brought it home and hid it in Snags’ room. He pulled Kleenex from a box and tossed them on Snag’s floor. He pulled CDs off his dresser and spread them around. I undecorated the tree in his room, spreading the ornaments on the floor, the bed, the furniture. The room looked, in the end, exactly like the kind of mess a mischievous elf might make while your six-year old self is toiling away at Kindergarten.

When I picked Snags up after school he was very excited. “Mom! You HAVE to call Santa Claus. You have to tell him that we want to ADOPT an elf! That’s why the elves didn’t stay. That’s why they said they’d be back next year. Santa has to know you want to ADOPT an elf and then he’ll let them stay! We have to put crackers and water out all over again tonight, okay? Will you call Santa? Will you? Will you mom? Will you?” I said I’d think about it. I told him I’d have to look up Santa’s phone number, even though the truth is, I already had it on my speed dial.

When we got home, Snags begged me once again. “Please mom, do it now. Call Santa and tell him we want to adopt an elf…” But before I could press a button on the phone, my husband’s voice boomed from upstairs: “Snags! Get up here right now!” Snags threw a worried look in my direction and headed up the stairs. I followed.

My husband pointed to the mess in Snags’ room. “You have to clean this up,” he said. And Snags began to protest. “I didn’t make that mess!”

“Snags!” I said, “Did you do this before we left for school? Why would you do something like this? I don’t understand why you would do this!”

“But I didn’t do it,” he insisted. “Maybe the elves did it.”

“There aren’t any elves, Snags,” I said. “You saw the note. They left you a few ornaments and said they’d be back next year. They didn’t stay here.”

And just as tears started to roll down his face at the injustice of it all, at being accused of making a mess he hadn’t made, and of having to clean it up on top of it all, Snags saw the note on his pillow, saw the end of the pointed elf hat peeking out of a box he had left on his nightstand, and his tears turned into joy. “Ha!” he shouted. “It WAS the elf! I told you I didn’t make this mess! This…” he screamed in joy, “This is just like the elf at school! He threw paper on the floor today while we were at lunch. When we got back to class the paper was all over! Yay! I have an elf! I have an elf! I am so happy I have an elf!” And then Snags danced a little dance.

Snags was ready for bed a full hour before his usual bedtime. He took his bath, brushed his teeth, put his pajamas on. He made a table for the elf out of an overturned Kleenex box. He placed two Ritz crackers and a Dixie Cup full of water on top. He filled an empty shirt box with hand towels to make a bed for the elf. He emptied trash cans and turned them upside down, creating a stair case leading from his night stand to the floor, so the elf could go do his mischief without having to jump down, without risking injury from a potential fall. Then he sat on his bed, staring at the elf, as if willing it to come alive before his very eyes.

In the morning, the crackers and water were gone, the family room floor, previously clear and free of toys, was littered with LEGOS and pillows off the sofa. The elf was found hiding in Snags’ Christmas stocking, too tired after all that mischief to make it back up the stairs to Snags’ room and his shirt box bed. And Snags, happy to have his very own elf, cleaned up the LEGOs with hardly any protest after my threat that I would call Santa and tell him to come get the mischievous elf right now if he didn’t clean up the mess. The deal, I said, is that YOU clean up any mischievous messes the elf makes. And if you don’t, the elf, he’s out of here!”

And so this, I think, is going to be fun. Snags is going to clean up messes he didn’t even make! Because I AM that kind of cruel. In fact, tomorrow morning, I think he’ll be folding a load of laundry that the elf brings up from the dryer and dumps all over the sofa. Yes, I think that’s what he’s going do… I just have this feeling about it. Or maybe that feeling is simply hunger, for a cracker…

14 Comments

Filed under Christmas, elves, humor, Kindergarten, life, Snags

November 2, 2007 · 9:55 am

And Then She Said

And then she said, “Your son is successful in all the areas here, he doesn’t need improvement in any of them. Let me show you some of his work and give you some examples of what I am talking about…”

She pulled out the spelling test. “Your son,” she said, “was the only child in the entire class who knew how to spell every sight word we’ve learned so far.”

“Look at his writing,” she said, as she pulled out another sheet. “And look here,” she pointed. “He knows how to use punctuation marks! I can talk about something one day and the next day he is incorporating it into his writing. Because I know he is listening, it is easy for me to sneak in more learning. I can write a question on the board and casually mention to the class that this is a question mark and we use it when we ask a question, and the next day your son is using question marks appropriately in his writing. None of the other children are doing this.”

“And here,” she pointed again, “he is using QUOTATION MARKS! I talked about them just the other day and the next day he was trying them out!”

“I LOVE having him in my class,” she said. “I just get so excited because I see he is learning things and I can just slip new concepts in, like punctuation marks, and I know that he at least, will pick up on them. We don’t usually teach punctuation marks in Kindergarten but it’s an easy thing for me to slip in there and your son picks up on it and has something new to think about and practice using.”

“In math, he is so advanced I’ve arranged to meet with the math enrichment teacher to have her develop a special math program for him so we can continue to meet his needs and so he won’t be bored. It will be special, just for him, and only one or two other children in the entire Kindergarten.”

“The other children,” she went on, “look up to him and go to you son for help on things. In fact, just the other day a bunch of them went up to him on the playground to get him to solve a problem for them. They had been playing something and had some kind of problem and one of them said “Snags can help us solve this!” And the children all agreed, so off they went to find him. He has lots of friends here. He gets along with everyone. He likes to help others.”

“He follows the rules, he is responsible. I can always count on him to listen and do what I have asked. I don’t have to repeat myself.”

Right up until that last sentence I had been nodding my head and smiling encouragingly. Tell me more! I thought. Go on, brag up my kid! I thought. I mean, I knew he was pretty smart. We haven’t done any IQ tests or anything, but compared to some of the kids he plays with whom I can’t even understand, who don’t know their shapes or their colors or how to count to ten, well, he just seemed pretty smart to me. He can count up to 200, and he uses words like apparently and evidently and vegetation and possibility and perhaps.

But then she said “He follows the rules…I can always count on him to listen and do what I have asked. I don’t have to repeat myself…” and I got such a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. She can’t be talking about my kid, I thought. Certainly not. Listening? Not having to repeat herself? If she’s got this part confused with some other child, then maybe all the smarty pants talk was about another kid as well…

Because right before the babysitter knocked on the door so my husband and I could go to the parent-teacher conference, I had to take the LEGOS away for misbehavior. For not listening. For not following the rules. Get a bath without arguing. Brush your teeth and get your pajamas on… “Okay, fine then. I am taking away the LEGOS!”

But she said she was talking about my kid.

So I invited her to come live with us.

10 Comments

Filed under humor, Kindergarten, life, parent teacher conference, school, smart, Snags

October 29, 2007 · 12:01 am

After the Party

Driving home after a birthday celebration for my mother-in-law, we pass the site where my brother-in-law’s pastry shop is going to be. It’s officially under construction, but so far the construction looks like a lot full of turned up dirt with a few stakes in the ground.

Snags, riding in the back seat of the car, says “I hope Uncle Mikey isn’t an astronaut by the time they finish building his pastry shop!” And since construction generally takes six or eight months around here, and since Mikey isn’t a pilot of any kind, nor does he work for NASA, the chances of him becoming an astronaut in the next six or eight months are somewhere between pigs flying and hell freezing over. My husband said “If Uncle Mikey is an astronaut before his pastry shop is finished, I’ll eat my hat!”

Snags thought that was pretty funny, you know, eventually… like after we spent several minutes explaining what “eat my hat” meant. But then Snags went on to demand “What hat?” and my husband said, “I don’t know, any hat… Some hat… A hat. It doesn’t matter…”

Snags (the optimist) considered all this for a few minutes then said, “Well, if Uncle Mikey is an astronaut by then that’s okay because I will take over his pastry shop!”

To which I replied, “You will? Oh really? How are you going to do that? What about school?”

“Oh, I’ll go to school! School can come to me while I am at the pastry shop!” Snags said, the air of a child actor in his tone.

“Besides,” he continued, “They aren’t even teaching us anything at school anyway. At least it feels like they aren’t! I don’t think we’re learning anything.”

I called him on that. I said “Well, what about all the sight words they’ve taught you? And all the words you can write now? You even write whole sentences by sounding out words yourself!”

“And math!” my husband added. “You know how to count by ten.”

Snags obviously felt bolstered from our pointing out all the things he had learned in school. “Yeah!” he said, “And I can count by eleven! Listen… 11, 41, 51, 61, 71, 81, 91, 101, 1000…”

My husband couldn’t take it. He interrupted. “How about 11, 22, 33, 44, 55….”

“You don’t know Dad! Snags cried. “I can count by twelve too, wanna hear?” Snags asked.

“Sure,” I said stifling a laugh.

“Okay… 12, 32, 42, 52, 62, 72, 82, 92, 102, 1000!” he proudly proclaimed.

And there, in the darkened night, with a low slung but full and bright moon shining in front of us, I thought to myself, maybe he’s right. Maybe they aren’t teaching him anything in school afterall.

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Filed under astronaut, counting, humor, Kindergarten, learning, life, pastry shop, Snags, Uncle Mikey

September 3, 2007 · 10:15 am

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.

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Filed under Boba Fet, humor, Kindergarten, life, Snags, Star Wars