First Day of School!

Some things we know, but we're in the dark, too.   

We know that today is the day.  We know that Maria loved the prep week she spent at Expo during "Camp Kindergarten."  We know the school has the best playground we (and the random kid in that you tube link) have ever been to.  We know that there are countless people who love this school.  People like David's (fairy?) Godmother, the president of the Expo PTO.  People like the woman who teaches the Sr. High Sunday School class with me.  We know there are lots of great kids in Kindergarten with her, like the five girls from Maria's day care and the son of one of MT's best friends from high school.   We learned exactly where Maria will sit and who her teacher will be when MT, Maria and I recently met with her teacher.

In the last week, we also figured out the most important thing.  Flash back eight months or so to when we were diligently visiting schools (eight of them).  My number one criterion for choosing a school: staying with BFF Audrey.  Now, I obviously couldn't say this to Mom and Dad Audrey for fear that they would think me shallow and stalk-y.  So I kept my mouth shut, sending them telepathic communications instead and passively asking what schools they were thinking of ranking #1.  With our #1s identical, both girls fortunately got into Expo, and at the open house, unbeknownst to the other, each mom put a handwritten note on the registration form requesting that their daughter be placed in the same class as the other's.  Then the bad news.  Come late August we receive the eagerly anticipated envelope.  A quick text confirmed that although Maria's teacher was "Larson," Audrey's was, well, Not Larson.  Parents, problem; problem, parents.  MT refused to let me call the school, not wanting me to go all La Febe on our brand new principal.  So, I tried to remain level-headed, declaring as MT was dialing the phone, "You need to make this happen.  We. Cannot. Fail."  I have no idea what happened at Audrey's house, but I doubt either parent responded with my same degree of drama.  Whatever they said or didn't say, it must have worked because a few days later, Principal called back to say they moved Audrey into Maria's class.

We are absolutely thrilled that our intervention was successful, and that success more than outweighs whatever sheepish guilt we felt for being a twinge crazy.  At our parent-teacher-student meeting last week, we all sat down at a kid's table and noticed that Maria, Audrey, and their mutual third muskateer (previously refered to in this blog as "Snow Fairy") are all at the same table together, keeping their streak of always being in the same room together alive for at least one more year.

The streak started when the girls were about 5 months old.  Here they are at about 16 months, on their last day in the baby room, before graduating to Little Angels:

Also at the conference, we listened as the teacher asked Maria what her goal was for the year.  This was completely serious, and not mocking or cutesy.  Maria at first responded with "like a soccer goal?" and then, after the teacher explained it to her, Maria said, "to learn to read."  That's a good goal, I thought.  Survey says?  Ding Ding Ding!

We also have known exactly what Maria was going to wear, having not only quarantined the new clothes for the past 6 weeks, but also having seen Maria put them in proper hierarchical order.  Maria "made her mannequin" with outfit #1 last night:

For food, Saint Paul public schools now have free breakfast for all kids, so we roughly know what that means after reading the monthly menu.  And, given that we can't fathom the extra work of packing her a lunch everyday, we have decided to start with paying for the lunch and see how that goes.  2 meals down.  We know roughly how it works, and it's basically the same as a meal plan in college.  We put money on her account and she has a pin number that she has to enter at the end of the line.  MT came up with this mnemonic chant: "Please buy more, 4-5-4!"  Now, what we don't know is what Maria will actually end up eating.  Before we settled on it, she told me that Expo was her favorite choice because I mentioned to her that they have hard boiled eggs, so I suspect that will be a frequent item.  Other than that, I worry that she's going to eat nothing but fruit cups or chocolate milk or something called "cheese bread."  I did make her promise to always grab some kind of vegetable, but somehow I think she'll get the part about her parents having no way of knowing what she eats.  I even thought about bluffing and saying that we get an email after her lunch listing what she chose, but I can't bluff that because, being her mother's daughter, I firmly believe she'd test it and soon realize that it wasn't true. 

Stepping back, MT and I know one of the fundamentals, too: that when we in her shoes, everything turned out just fine.  We both figured things out, and that was back when no one knew about healthy hot lunch options and poeple thought bullying was character-building.  We made it, she'll be fine, right?  Incidentally, we managed to dig up some kiderpics to share:

(OK, so this one could be closer to 5 years old instead of 5.5, but whatev)



So we know a lot.  But there is so much more that we not only don't know, but have no way of controlling. We don't know if she's prepared.  She fidgets all the time, and she has what we've taught her to call "impulse control" problems from time to time, like showing kids at day care her underwear and cutting things with scissors.  She eats her hair.  She talks back to us.  She sometimes takes advantage of her little brother.  And we know that she's feeling anxious.  We have noticed a marked change in behavior since our parent-teacher-student meeting and since Maria had a celebrated "last day" at day care.  She's fragile and acting up, both signs we've seen before when she's facing lots of change.  We know this, but we don't know what we can do to really help.  Extra hugs, extra one-on-one time, lots of positive talking up about kindergarten (although that last one may end up just making it a bigger deal), but is that really doing anything?   

And then again, we watched her this weekend and quieted those thoughts.  She has an extraordinary vocabulary, one that includes the word "vocabulary."  She surprises us with her imagination, telling us Dahlian stories about what happens at "her land," the place she goes in a magic elevator after we leave her room at night.  Her notebook from daycare was full of artistic ability and concepts, well beyond what her daycare teachers had ever seen before or expected.  Her memory is just as precise as her mother's, and I find myself getting the "court reporter" to read back my own words with her just as I do when takling to MT.  She's resourceful, logical, and loves to learn, about everything from the solar system (she explained to me how Pluto used to be a planet but now is a "dwarf planet" along with another one who's name I have already forgotten) to the diets of dinosaurs to the origin of Frankenstein.  Saturday night, she and MT played Yahtzee, and when MT asked what two 6s were, Maria said quickly, "12."  When MT asked "what about four 2s," Maria thought and said, "well, 2 plus 2 is 4 and two 4s is eight."  She is independent, thoughtful, fearless, and confident--perhaps to a fault.  She speaks her mind and knows what is fair, what is right, and what is expected. We know our daughter, and we know that she is ready--for another step, another increment towards becoming her own person. 

Her parents, on the other hand are most certainly not ready, or not ready for what we think it means for her to be in school.  To us, early elementary blends together, and although I think there is almost never a true slippery slope in anything, it still feels like she's 5 going on 5th grade.  And we aren't ready for that.  School is a new routine for us, which we can get used to.  School brings a new set of have tos and can'ts, like no more 3-phase vacations in early spring. Again, we can adjust.  But the real curve ball is that "school" also marks the start of her growing into her own person, and rational or not, how can that happen without necessarily also meaning that her indepedence leaves us behind?  I know, I know, we're barely in the middle of Toy Story 1, Andy isn't going to college for a long, long time.  But, school is still a very definite, real step that she is taking, and that direction is away, on her own.  We won't be there to calm her down, or solve her problems, or be her saviors.  She has to do that on her own.  All we can do is wait and see. 

We have no idea what her day or her week will be like, but we do know what her morning, her evening, and her weekend will be like.  We don't know how she will react when her feelings are hurt, or when she gets lost, or when she gets frustrated or lonely.  But we do know that she's had to navigate a lot of that at day care already, and she has true friendship with Audrey and the Snow Princess.  And whether we want to or not, we have to belive that even though she might eat half a dozen hard boiled eggs today, or absent-mindedly lick the table, or breakdown and cry throughout the day, she will not only figure it out, but will do so in a way that makes us proud.

And, she's off!