School Recap

Now that I've officially had a school-attending child for a month now I need to recap and recount those very important first days of school.

Day One - I drop her off and wait for emotion to kick in. It does. The emotion - jealousy. I don't shed a tear, I don't feel nervous, just jealous that she gets to go to school and I don't. Now what? Miles and I drive around a bit as I try to figure out a) what to do at this time of morning and b) what to do with only one child at home and a child I have really never been alone with for any length of time. We head to the gym. Time to try out some of those energizing a.m. classes. We pass Carl's Jr. on the way. They are hiring. Maybe I should get a job?

By noon I feel as if I have been awake forever and I still have multiple hours till she comes home and until I can find out all of the fun stuff I am missing out on. She takes the bus home. I'm a bit nervous about this because the bus schedule is not clear on the drop off times. I wait for 20 minutes. She arrives and I start in with the questions. She is in no mood to talk. All day kindergarten will do that to a girl I guess. She wants to watch cartoons. Later that day I finally get her to talk while she bathes. All I really get from her is that she got in trouble three times. This of course engenders further nagging on my part. She says not like "in time-out trouble" the teacher just said her name. I know that Avery is an interrupter, so I ask and it turns out that this indeed was her offense. She informs me that she doesn't want me to drive her anymore and she doesn't want me to make her a lunch. She wants one of those card things she gets to swipe. I will continue to make her a lunch but I was never planning on driving her to school each day.

Week one - Nothing new. Still cranky when she gets home.

Week two - I ask the bus driver if we can change the bus stop to right by our house since no one else was showing up at the assigned stop and it was a bit of a hike. Wish granted. No more sprinting to catch the bus in the morning. Or at least now it is a shorter sprint. One of my very favorite things about Avery's school - free hot breakfast for all. Good stuff too - omelets, pigs in a blanket, bagel and cream cheese, breakfast pizza or a daily assortment of cold cereal. This blessing alone saves us 15-20 minutes in the morning. I get up 20 minutes till the bus comes and make her lunch. I wake her up 10 minutes till the bus comes and she brushes teeth, hair and gets dressed in whatever she has picked out the night before - or sometimes put on the night before - or sometimes worn the day before, slept in and worn again (this only happened once and she insisted and as I'm not one to care so much for appearances go right ahead). Miles sleeps through this whole affair.

She has been singing Christmas (and Hanukkah and Navidad) songs, which I'm guessing is for an upcoming holiday performance. Now Miles even sings them when she is gone. His Spanish is better than hers.

In each weeks classroom newsletter the teacher mentions those students with excellent behavior. Avery has not been on this short list yet but does get a mention for getting the most "thank-you sticks". These are for helping the teacher in some way or another. When you get ten you get to pick something from the treasure box. 6 more to go.

Week three - Avery is adjusting to her new schedule and is more chipper when she gets home. It also helps that her new and first best school friend sits next to her on the bus and goes to church with her (and turns out her mom is my visiting teaching companion - perfect!). She often exits the bus with glittered hair and purple eyeshadow. One day they had a male bus driver, who based on Avery's impression is from a Slavic country, and who told them "Dis is not a beauty school" From the looks of it they just giggled and went back to painting their faces.

Back to school night. Finally I can get the low down on the getting into trouble thing. Turns out she was interrupting and asking questions just as I assumed but that she has learned the teachers "system" now and is complying with protocol (and common courtesy). Her teacher praised her vocabulary and sentence structure and said she was a very good helper. Her teacher is just what Avery needs - experienced, no-nonsense and has high expectations for her kindergartners. Ben was able to make it to meet the teacher and I'm sure she was wondering why I brought Avery's older brother instead of Capt. Westbrook. That ball cap, baggy pants and Laker's shirt just makes me look ancient next to it. Maybe I should revive my high school wardrobe.

Avery showed us around the classroom and pointed out all kinds of important sounding features - the "literacy lab", the workstations with "polydrons" and some other geometric sounding things.

Week four -

They have a substitute for two days while some teaching training is happening. During this time Avery gets knocked down from the gold behavior level (the best) to green (not so best). The reason "It's a long story". Turns out the story is not so long at all. She was just swordfighting with a boy next to her. With pencils of course. Sounds like a great day at school to me. Avery starts getting "homework" this week, something I've been anticipating but have to yet to experience. It's lame kindergarten homework like recognizing shapes in nature. I did get tripped up though with the 'rhombus' - turns out that's a fancy word for diamond shape. From now on we will be using the scientific name. We don't want Avery to flunk kindergarten.

This week they also switch their social studies unit from "feelings" to family and friend relationships and conflict resolution. And Avery got her tenth "thank you' stick and picked out a not so giant size bag of sour-patch kids (she has her dad's palate) and even though there were probably only four in the bag she shared with Miles, so maybe she's learning something after all.

By now I am enjoying seeing how much I can accomplish by noon. One day I managed to take a yoga class, drop off some left over building materials, pick up some metal lathe, buy some boots and running shoes for Avery (her school does allow flip flops but it's a little chilly for bare toes at 7am), pick up some more plants at the nursery and grab a few things at the grocery store all before 11am. And Miles is actually a fun little companion on these outings.