Getting ready for kindergarten, post #2

Kindergarten orientation day.
I don't think I've been inside an elementary school in years.  Did we have tiny toilets and chairs and tables when we were in school?  I suppose we did, but it all seemed so enormous and life-sized and scary back then.
Huh.
Anyway, V can't wait to start.  
She got to meet her teacher, and walk through the hallways this afternoon.  It was all very exciting but a bit overwhelming and foreign-feeling--
--until she found the school library.  I kid you not, it was like she had found some sort of comfort blanket.  This is the relief that familiar books can bring--  She managed to find Frog and Toad, and immediately set herself down at a [mini-sized] table to read for 15 minutes.
Frog and Toad, two good friends who we have come to know very well over the past year or so--   There they were, welcoming my little person into this new place.  Isn't that the beauty of a library?  Even in a new strange place, you can find an old familiar face and friend.
The school librarian was the first person Violet actually said she wanted to say hi to.  So we went up, and it was as if we were meeting a rock star.  Violet: grinning, shy, giddy.

We are all getting a little more used to the idea of kindergarten.  I asked Eloise today if someday she was going to get big and go off to kindergarten.  She has these ever-happy laughing eyes. She thinks her big sister is fun and fascinating; I hold them both while I still can.

Getting ready for kindergarten, post #1.

Most of the time these days I feel like I've got this parenting thing down.  I've been doing it for 5 years now.  I know how to pack everyone into the car and do varsity level parenting things, like go to the bank with two kids in tow.  I figured out how to teach another human being how to write, read, tie shoes, peel eggs and carrots, use the toilet, twirl spaghetti.  

I know... parent of the year, right?  

But let me tell you, nothing-- absolutely nothing--- prepared me for the way I would feel (horror? panic?) when I got this letter in the mail the other day stating the time and place that my child should stand to be picked up by the school bus next week, should we decide to have her take it.  

OhMyLord.  Kindergarten.  I'm trying to get used to the idea.  I keep having to remind myself that we and she are doing everything right and that everyone else starting kindergarten is in the same boat.  

But a little bit it feels like when we were new first time parents, and Violet was just two days old, and we took her in to the doctor and proclaimed with great anxiety that often she would cry when we put a hat on her head at night, and would she be ok or would she freeze to death in our 70-degree apartment???  

A mother worries.   

How did she get from this.....

all the way to this...... 

in only 5 years??!  Sometimes when I look at her I still see photo #1 and worry that her head is cold.  Maybe I'll slip a hat into her backpack on the first day of school, you know, just in case.   

Dear Robin Williams...

Dear Robin Williams, 

I never met you, but I wanted to write to you this morning and tell you something.  

My friends and I-- We were 10 years old and growing out of childhood when I first learned about you.    

We were already solemn and nervous, on the verge of having to become teenagers.  

But you came into our lives, huge and blue, in this form that we could understand.  

Everything else was just flat doodles on the screen, so I'm not sure how you did it, but there you were-- transformed completely into The Genie.

--and on the edge of having to mind our manners for the rest of our lives, you gave all of us 10 year olds something to laugh about for the summer before we had to go and start fourth grade.    

When I had to start school that fall, my parents bought me this t-shirt that had Genie faces all over it. Each face was a different wacky Genie expression.  I wish I still had that shirt because when I wore it I felt like I could be fun and silly even though I was having to sit and learn the beginnings of algebra and study early California history.  

Mr. Williams, When I heard yesterday that you decided to leave this world,  my heart sunk into my feet.  I wish I could have given you the gift that you gave to all of us 10 year olds in 1992:  a giant blue dart of joy to help you get through the next few months and years.  

We were small and trying to be brave sitting in a dark room, but you brought us to this safety zone of laughter where we could all just be children.   

So, for that, and for everything else:  Thank you.  

 

4 Months

Yesterday I was walking around the grocery store with Eloise in her stroller.  She was sleeping.  And then she woke up.  I stopped and watched as she blinked her eyes and left whatever dreamworld babies go to when they sleep.... and slowly she came back into reality.  It took her a moment, and then she focused in on me, and sprang into the most enormous smile-- laughing and sparkling-- right there in the middle of the store, as if I had just told the most hilarious joke she'd ever heard. 

This is how you are at 4 months:  You are bursting with happiness, like you're filled up completely with bluebirds and bubbles that flitter around and tickle you all day long.  

I've never met anyone so huggable-snuggly; warm, squishy, cooing--  complaining when we put you down.    

At 4 months you are absolutely the fourth side to our square.  You are completely and totally one of us.  Happy 4-month birthday Eloise.