Week 3 and Sailor “Gets” 3

Monday. Mac called in “sick” again to kindergarten so as to be in attendance (and perform his much-rehearsed but very 5-year-old magic show) at Sailor’s third birthday party, which I scheduled for 11:00 a.m. on Monday. Just heard there is no school next Tuesday. Let’s hear it for the 4-day school week!

Tuesday. Mac has homework. “Read the poem. Circle all the Aa’s.” Who’s supposed to read the poem? Mac? Or me? Mac can’t read much yet. Though he seems to have this particular poem, entitled “Apples,” fairly well memorized. I don’t want to do homework. This is not going to be good.
Sailor, dressed in a t-shirt adorned with an iron-on transfer of a big number 3, which he colored in himself, brought cupcakes to school today. But he still cried. Ah, but bribery is sweet. I reminded him I’d be at Target exchanging the Curious George doll that giggles and is supposed to wiggle but only giggles, for a Curious George doll who both giggles and wiggles, as promised on the box. He slid out of my arms and retreated to the back of the classroom, perhaps to bravely wait out the three hours.

Two Targets and one Toys R Us later I have Giggling, Wiggling (let’s be real here, the psycho-human-sounding tail-less monkey isn’t wiggling, he’s vibrating) Curious George tucked nicely into a soft blanket and strapped beside Mac in the double jogger. (No, I certainly do not actually jog!) I pop my head into school to retrieve the newly-three-year-old and the empty cupcake tray. And I see him prone on the red circle line on the floor. “Is he sleeping?” I ask, incredulously. “No!” insist both teachers, “He was just running around the circle a moment ago!” They are adamant. But on closer inspection, I declare, “He’s sleeping!” and sure enough he is! Where is Kodak when we need them?

Wednesday. Mac circles Aa’s over breakfast. I see a pattern developing here. Ok, no, I don’t see one actually developing. I see one that will soon develop. I don’t like homework. This is kindergarten. I begged for homework in 2nd grade and rarely got it. But that was 1975. This is 2006 and children must begin homework right out of the womb. But I disagree. Isn’t a day of school enough? Home is for play and family time and eating and sleeping, not for more schoolwork. It’s going to be a long 9 years, I mean 13 years, I mean 16 years, I mean, do I still have to participate in homework when they are in college?

Mac is invited, via email, to his first kindergarten birthday party. I am honored: he is one of only 4 boys in the class being invited by a boy who has just moved from Germany and speaks no English. The email states that the party will last several hours, dinner will be served, and that the mom will pick up the kids from school and bring the kids to her house. Without me? Over my dead body! What if there is a dog? Mac is afraid of dogs. What if the father owns fire arms? I haven’t lectured Mac about the “call Mom and leave the house immediately if you see a gun” plan. What if they serve popcorn? Mac isn’t allowed to eat popcorn until he is 6. What if they serve food filled with partially hydrogenated oils? He’ll tell the mom he’s not supposed to eat that. “Yeah! Sure!” he exclaims brightly when I ask him if he’d like to attend the party next Wednesday after school. But then, hands on hips he says gently, “Well, we’re not really friends.” “His mom told me he said you were nice,” I tell him. “Yeah, well I guess he’s my friend a little. I think he’ll like it if we get him Star Wars stuff.” Welcome to America.

Fall has, quite literally, fallen! I took my first hot bath of the season tonight. I am sore from ice skating with the boys this morning. Yes, I can still do a damn good aerial (that thing where you skate with one leg stretched high up and out behind you) and, two babies and six years later, I can still “shoot the duck” – a move made by skating and then squatting down, and then sticking one leg straight out in front of you. But I can tell I’ll be sore tomorrow, especially after having walked Mac to school then walking to my children's art studio then picking up Mac from school 2 hours later and bringing him to FTK (an enrichment program he attends) and then walking home. Did I mention that I walk at breakneck speed and that part of that walk was done while carrying a pair of very heavy figure skates and a cup of not-very-good hot coffee?

I find it interesting how easily we slip back into cold weather mode. As if this is our natural state. As if it’s insignificant that we are all still very tan yet have to now cover up most of our bodies in things like fleece and shoes and socks. As if we don’t mind spending most of our lives shivering. As if we weren’t at the beach just a couple of weeks ago. Where did our summer go? Why do we just accept this chilly weather as if it were novel? Are we blind or just in denial that these brisk, Halloween-is-coming, days will inevitably lead to COLD COLD COLD snowy COLD unending days of COLD winter? Summer days are surprising and energetic, but we accept these cool fall days so readily and with such complacency. Or is it simply resignation? Someday we will move to a warmer climate.

Thursday. Wonder of wonders! Miracle of miracles! Sailor doesn’t have to become a preschool drop-out afterall. HE DIDN’T CRY TODAY! “I cried because I was ‘cited!” he told me this morning at breakfast. I reassured him that it was no longer necessary to cry. And he didn’t. And I left him, post-kiss-and-hug, on the climbing apparatus in the corner of the classroom. Thumbs up! Woo hoo! Hip hip hooray! Celebration! Whew… what a relief.

I was volunteer room parent for Mac’s kindergarten class this afternoon. On Tuesday we shopped for the requisite snack. Which is supposed to be healthy. Which I truly appreciate. But… we have to buy enough of whatever we buy to feed 27 children. Nothing comes in 27. And healthy foods do not come cheap. Cheese sticks, $2.50 per package of 12 plus 3 extras at 24 cents apiece, a box of Triscuits (one of only two commercially sold crackers that does not contain partially hydrogenated oils) at $2.49 and I realize I will not be able to afford juice boxes at $4.99 for 15, nor do I have the physical body strength to transport 30 juice boxes, napkins, cups, crackers and cheese 6 blocks. I decide on an empty juice pitcher and enough organic lemonade powder to make lemonade for 27.

When the 4th graders arrived to pair up with their kindergarten reading buddies, Mac quietly told me, “Don’t talk to me, Mom. I don’t want them to know you are my mom.” This after begging the teacher to let him introduce me to each and every one of the 27 little (really not so little!) tykes. It starts early.

I had fun. Mac was far better behaved than I had been told to expect during a parent visit. And it’s enlightening to be involved. Always lamenting the complete and total lack of parent participation roles at preschool, I am now completely overwhelmed by the participation opportunities now available to me as the mother of a kindergartener. In Mac’s folder this afternoon there was a form to fill out for the dish we want to bring to the school-wide Open House potluck next Tuesday night. Do we want to help set up? Stay late to clean up? Tonight there is an emailed invitation to the kindergarten class potluck dinner at the end of the month. Parents whose children’s last name begins with A-F are in charge of appetizers. I’ll have to make the appetizer, and bring the required “beverage of my choice,” and make my appearance. Alone. Ah, the joy of being a single mom.

Mac wants to know when school ends. And where he’ll go after this. We’re here for the duration. Twelve years for you and brother combined. Unless we get into the fancy private school down the street. You know, when hell freezes over.

The kids have been tired this week. Probably the combo of Sailor’s birthday weekend, the mild yet irritating cold we seem to be sharing (“Mommy, I can’t sniff!” Sailor cries out when he can’t breathe at night) and just the vast depth of activities that we have been packing into each day. Sailor has been napping fairly easily and quite long each afternoon. And, at last the boys have been really good about getting to bed early this week.... finally... after FIVE LONG, SLEEPLESS YEARS! Now if I could just curb my late-night Oprah addiction and close my eyes before midnight (or 11:00, or maybe 10:00 or even 9:00) I may actually get a good night’s sleep. It’s been so long….


Friday. Picture Day. Already. I dressed Mac in a brand new white button down and a navy blue sweater vest. They're still too big. I washed, gelled, blow dried, and sprayed his hair. I applied cover stick and powder to the weird chapped red mark below his lower lip, and chapstick to his dry lips. The brilliant photographer decided the best time to take the kindergarten class picture was at the end of the day. So despite all my efforts, Mac’s photos (they sent home the proofs!) show a typically clueless, somewhat bedraggled, but nonetheless charmingly cute kindergartener. I have two proofs to choose from. Oh the agony of it. Why can’t anything be easy anymore!? Oh, well, at least they aren’t asking more than $15 for the photo package that includes the 5x7. Ya gotta have the 5x7.

Tonight we celebrated Rosh Hashanah. Mac was so pooped out it was all I could do to keep him at the table through dinner. Of course, the tornado alarm in the middle of dinner that sent the 6 of us, a loaf of Challah, a flashlight and an AM radio down to the basement’s tiny bathroom was enough to frighten the pants off the kid. The warning was over in less than 15 minutes, but Mac was toast for the rest of the night. Sailor, meanwhile, had turned into the crazy drunk relative. I have never heard so much continuous noise come out of someone so small. True to new form however, both boys were out in minutes after being read to and tucked into bed. Thus ending week three of 38. Only 35 to go….