What Kindergarten Taught Me So Far

No, MKB isn't blogging...yet.  But her KG class is teaching us about her, and about ourselves. 

Despite our anxiety about it, Maria showed very few signs of stress about starting Kindergarten.  And, four weeks in, she has completely adjusted.  Maria comes home full of new things, from the songs that she learned (her repertoire grows daily), to the friends that she made, to the new things she discovered about her school.   Almost from the moment when we dropped her off, she's been happy and excited about all parts of school. 

It's fun to see her experiencing classic elementary school staples for the first time.  She explained how the girls played the boys during gym (the resource class for last week) in dodgeball.  "Do you know what dodgeball is, Dad?"  She reported that the boys won the first game, but that the girls won the second, "and I think whoever wins the second game wins all the games."  I agreed.   The boy-girl rivalry reminded me of something I said when I worked at my church day care one summer:* "Boys are dumb and girls are better."  I thought maybe Maria would like to hear it, after she told me about the boy-girl rivalry.  Instead, she explained that two boys got in "big trouble" for chanting "Boys rule, girls drool."  So much for the kindergarten battle of the sexes, but I suppose that's for the best.

*It was the summer just before law school (seems like it was a past life to me now), and I was in charge of about ten or twelve 5th and 6th grade boys, 11 of whom were on some form of medication.  In addition to my boys, I also helped out with the other groups.  My favorite kid was a little 6 year old girl with a surprising vocabulary.  One day a group of boys said something or did someting to her, so I told her to always remember, "Boys are dumb, and girls are better."  It became something we would say to each other for the rest of the summer.  That was far from the most unorthodox thing that I did.  For instance, I came up with the "Surfer Girl" Game.  I'd play the song "Surfer Girl" by the Beach Boys while me and one of my boys held up a wooden plank (I don't know why we had a wooden plank, maybe from a shelf?) and walked around the room with my favorite girl "surfing" on it.  Where the Hell were the adults??  Now, in my defense, I only had one kid cut his head open on my watch all summer.  I was helping another kid in the bathroom, when I heard the commotion and ran out to see Kevin bleeding ALL OVER.  Looking back, I remember bits and pieces - like explaining to his parents how "No one was supposed to be swinging from that rope."  And "I don't even think it will need many stitches." And, this one, "Kevin's a real tough kid."  I think I would lose it if someone said that after Maria or David had some kind of serious head injury.  These parents really didn't do anything that stands out in response, though.  Come to think of it, his parents were really to blame.  I mean, they even brought Kevin back the next day. 

Up until last Thursday, the biggest problem to date was the magnets.  MT had a short trial in Montana,* and while in Billings, she found a little boutique shop that sold, among other things, little magnets like these:

MT thought that they were perfect for Maria's locker and bought her initials and a glittery heart, and the magnets went up on the inside of her locker on Day 1.  But, then, on Day 2, when I picked Maria up, she said she wanted to put the magnets on the front of the locker.  You guessed it, by the next morning, they were gone.  Maria was in tears.  When combined with the momentary loss of her back pack and jacket later in the week (both resurfaced  a day or two later), she's learned a valuable life lesson: no one is looking after your stuff for you anymore.  She's not upset about the magnets anymore and hasn't brought them up since that first week.

*I think this was the case where her client told her that they would settle for 7 steer and 8 bales of hay, or was it 8 steer and 7 bales.  MT could scarcely hold back her embarrassment when making the offer, but opposing counsel (local in Montana) didn't skip a beat, saying, "that's a pretty steep price, I don't think my client will agree."  Not having a clue as to the market value of various bovine species, MT had to take his word for it.  Things worked out for the best, as they ended up not settling, and having a brief trial.  A trial that MT won, after a shining Perry Mason moment, in which MT got the opposing party to admit that he hadn't really read his sworn affidavit, and that he signed it only because his attorney said he had to.  Worse, although the copy in evidence was notarized, he admitted that it had not been notarized at the time that he signed it or ever in his presence.  Opposing counsel was probably thinking at that moment that settling for a whole herd of cows would have been fair. 

Apart from that, and up until Friday, things had gone very well.  Of course, the teacher had reported that Maria was disruptive during some group time, attempting to talk to Audrey, or that she didn't stop working on something and clean up with the rest of the class, or that she took too long in the bathroom and got left behind when her class went out to recess.  These aren't great, but they aren't that serious, either.  And then came Friday.  Maria had an incident.  She and a friend took too long in the bathroom, and got left behind as the rest of the class went to resource class.  Then Maria and her friend starting goofing around, yelling silly words to each other, giggling, and crawling along the bathroom floor.  One of the lunch ladies busted them and we got a couple of calls from Maria's teacher.  More on this in a future post, but within a half hour, MT and I game-planned what we were going to do: I was to leave work early and get the full scoop from the teacher, then briefly address it with Maria, mostly to inform her of the "family meeting" to occur on Saturday while David had his nap, and implement the sticker chart as a starter response.  School is closed Wed-Friday this week, so we will implement the Monday after the MEA break.  Like I said, fodder for the next post. 

Other than the Incident, she has adjusted very well.  Overall, she loves being at school, making new friends, and learning.  She has weekend homework every Friday, assignments that are tailor-made for kindergartners.  Last week, she had to decorate a brown bag and put things in it that were a reflection of who she is, and what she likes.  Maria stuffed it full of the following:

dry spaghetti
two chocolate easter eggs from months ago
one marble painted like a globe
one pocket-sized Ariel doll, in wedding dress
one sparkly pink shoe
the book "Matilda," from our Roald Dahl series
one paint brush
the photo album that MT ordered from the Martha's Vineyard Vacation
a coaster art project made from tracing her hand
a selection of shells from her collection
one pink bangle

Maria came home and reported that she got to explain her grab bag the other day.  She was very proud of herself and told us, "turns out I was the longest speaker of all!" We expected nothing less.