They're going back! Maybe...

Today marked the first day of school for our county. I've got a third and a first grader this year; how in the world did that happen? Curse you Father Time and your slow but inexorable waltz towards entropy! We had the tools (supplies. So. Many. Supplies.), we had the talent (braaaaains), and we had the new outfits (natch.) We were so, so ready. (Fine, I; I was so, so ready for them to go back mostly so that they could sleep later.) Because we seem to live in a parallel universe, they sleep in during the school year as the bus doesn't pick up until 9 am (if we're lucky) for a 9:20 start. This has the effect of school mornings being rather enjoyable for pretty much everyone.

School! What fun! Wheeee!

 Since this isn't our first rodeo, we left the house at 8:45 to get up to the bus stop as the bus tends to arrive a tad early at the beginning of the year. We reconnected with friends, traded notes on who had what teacher, and of course, posed for pictures.

90 degrees and wearing a scarf. Like a boss.

Well, Noelle did. Someone else may have been a little grumpy about having to put down his Lego Minecraft Batman...thing...to get ready for school.

Just take the picture already, woman!

Just a bit after 9, the bus pulls up...and passes right on by. Wait, what?! While it stopped at the second neighborhood stop at the top of the street, the rest of us grabbed backpacks stuffed with supplies (so many supplies!) and hauled ass up the hill to the stop...where the bus pulls away.

What the actual fuck?!

Is there a second bus for our neighborhood? Did the driver really just blow off a group of 25 kids? Ours is not a new stop, not by a long shot. Kids are bewildered, parents are frantic so I called the school and asked politely - for me - what in the name of pants was happening. It turns out that there are two buses servicing our neighborhood now, an early one and a later one with the usual bus driver. However, the later bus was running late (no shit, Sherlock) due to an accident somewhere but was on its way. How very reassuring given that it was now 9:12 and they are expected to be in their classrooms by 9:15. And did no one in the administration think to inform anyone on the route as to the changes seeing as a bus LEFT A BUNCH OF KIDS AT A REGULAR BUS STOP.

Breathes heavily.

I had to get to work so we tossed everything into the car and took off for school, fully expecting to see the bus come barreling around the bend any second.

Nope. No bus.

Of course once on Main Street, there was traffic due to a closed lane. Did they not get the memo that schools were back in session as of today and maybe it would be a better idea to wait until, oh, 9:30 to start that shit? Clearly not.

Rolling to a stop, I pretty much barked 'Go! Go! Go!' to the kids, shouting out room numbers as they dashed into the building, dragging their supplies (so, so many supplies.)

I really, really hope that I got their room numbers right otherwise enjoy your day in whatever class I sent you to, guys.

Don't ever change, Baltimore County. Don't ever change.

Superheroes wear chalk dust

If you have kids then you know that this week is American Education week. (And if you have kids and don't know this then you might want to consider cleaning out your child's back pack occasionally. Just saying.) This means we celebrate school and teachers and students and all things educational all. week. long., complete with Visits To The Classroom To Watch Them Learn. (Though really, why is this the week before Thanksgiving with all the attendant days off. Some of us have to work for a living yanno.) Anywho, this is the first year that both Noelle and Noah are in big kid school and luckily (?)  their classroom visit times were on the exact same day. Noelle chose to have Dyl visit her class and no switching allowed (her rules but grandparents could change it up, NBD. Thanks kid.) so I observed Noah's class. I know I went to Noelle's kindergarten two years ago but I don't remember anything like what went down in Room 2.

I walked in to the morning meeting where they were doing calendar-type stuff. But not just the days of the week, oh ho ho! No, this involved identifying all of the months, figuring out what day it was, putting it on the calendar, deciphering the pattern of the numbers, counting the number of days of school thus far (52), talking about how to group the numbers to get 52, predicting the temperature, reading the thermometer, graphing the temperature all while keeping 22 little butts on the carpet. After that, it was time for a break. This is the part of kindergarten where we dance.

What does the elephant say?

Now it was time for project number one for the day - making a turkey glyph. But before that, we needed to do the morning message as a letter and all the accompanying parts. Then popsicle sticks were drawn for the sight word detectives and lastly, a story about turkey's disguise. Directions were discussed for the glyph and the kraken were released to art and craft!

When the glyphs were finished, it was time to reconvene on the carpet for language arts and the mystery of syllables. Something else happened but you need the energy of five- and six-year olds to keep up. Or that of a kindergarten teacher. They were released once again with a page of Thanksgiving-related words and directions to separate them into one-, two- and three-syllables and paste in the correct columns. Then because I'm mean I made him pose for pictures with his grandparents. He'll thank me someday.

Note that *everything* above happened in less than two hours. Two. Hours. Introducing, reinforcing, reviewing concepts, teaching, encouraging, redirecting and praising, allowing them time to move and do and be. Kindergarten teachers are the force behind the perpetual motion machines that are children. I returned to work completely exhausted from watching this beautifully balanced chaos. 

To all of you early childhood educators, you are amazing. Thank you for all that you do with a group of ants-in-the-pants, semi-deranged howler monkeys on a daily basis and not giving in to the understandable urge to run away. I am forever in awe of you.

The wild rumpus

And I think Mrs. C in particular deserves something extra nice for the holidays this year, mostly likely in the form of a large bottle.

On second thought, better make that two.

Line Across, Up and Around

Noah is doing pretty well with transitioning to kindergarten. He's enthusiastic about the sight words, loves going to the 'special' classes (his favorite is a tie between P.E. and library. Art can just DIAF.) and buying lunch in the cafeteria is off the hook. Not to mention riding the bus. Shit just got real. But the one area he struggles in is forming letters. He recognizes them just fine; it's the fine motor skills that are lagging a bit but that's to be expected because 1) he just turned 5 and B) he's a boy. Each day the kids get worksheets with a particular letter showing upper and lower case and the pencil movements needed to complete it. Friday's was 'E'. Uppercase E? No sweat. That's just four lines and boom! Done. Lowercase? Lawd have mercy.

The worksheet came home on Friday with a note that it has to be completed and returned so this morning after breakfast (I mean, really, when else would you do it?) he colored in the rest of the elephant and then for good measure, I suggested doing some more lowercase 'e's, just for practice as the original ones closely resembled inverted infinity symbols.

"But I can't doooo itttttt."

"Yes you can. We'll do them together."

So he gripped the pencil and I put my hand over his, realizing too late that I was using my right hand but we're committed now. Onward Ferb! I talked him through the motions as we made them with me doing the primary guiding.

"Okay, line straight across now up and around. Good, let's do it again. Line across and up and around."

By the third time, I loosened my grip on his hand leaving him to do that majority of the work, still repeating the litany but now with him joining in. "...line across, up and around..." until we were out of room. Would this obstacle stop him? No sirree, he drew more lines and we pressed on.

"...line across, up and around..."

Until the sixth one where I let go completely and simply chanted with him.

"line across, up and around..."

The first one by himself ended up looking like a Greek theta and he looked discouraged.

"No buddy, you're doing great. Just pick up the pencil a bit earlier. Try one more time."

"...line across, up and around..."

"Mommy! I did it! Look at my 'e'! I can write a little 'e'!"

"You did it Boo Boo! It's fantastic! Way to go!"

No sunrise in the world could have lit up his face any better than the pride shining in his eyes. Sometimes all it takes is a little confidence and someone willing to help you find your way.

Oh, and chocolate milk never hurts either.

Epilogue: After an amazing beginning to the day, Noah then proceeded to have an absolute epic meltdown at school which sent him from 'Green' to 'Red' back up to 'Yellow' followed by a rapid descent to 'Red' over a coveted library book and a slight recovery to 'Yellow' to finish out the day. Good grief, that emotional roller coaster makes me exhausted just by writing that. Five is hella fun y'all.

Endings and Beginnings and I Feel Fine

This week is finally (Finally!) here - big kid birthday, school starting, moving into our favorite time of the year (the end of the week with its stupid 90 degree weather not withstanding)...I've been waiting for this all year. Yeah, I know, don't wish your life away but I'd be lying if I said my heart wasn't a thousand times lighter and my wallet a thousand times heavier today.

So. Birthdays. This is a big one. Noah is 5. Yup. Finally. The side-eye we would get when we told people he was four was getting old. Now his size looks more reasonable. It's just a number but people have different expectations of 5 versus 4. (Welcome to the real world honey, isn't it wonderful?) He went to bed being 4 and woke up being 5. Literally as he was born at 1:30 in the morning. My uterus sincerely believes that the middle of the night is the perfect time to give birth. I was a little misty eyed, kissing my four year old goodnight for the last time because four has been incredible. It's like the universe gets its shit together and the personality and skills - verbal, emotional, physical - combine into an explosion of awesomeness. This has seriously been my favorite year with him - so much growth! Having conversations, playing pretend games (though I will not be sad to retire 'Evil Brain'), being called out on skipping words when reading. I'm really digging this little boy of mine. So it's hard to let that go. But! Five man. This is the big time. It all gets real now.

It certainly is.

But with that transition to Kindergarten comes the ending of our time with Celebree Learning Centers. We've been part of the Celebree family for seven and a half years, since Noelle was an infant. Walking out of that door for the final time on Thursday is going to be hard; they have done wonderfully by our kids and it's because of them that we decided to send Noah to Kindergarten this year when we could have easily waited until he turned 6. They've been so patient with him and he adores his teachers and now he's ready. As sad as that will be (because I'm a sentimental softy who hates change), it's time and hoo boy is my wallet ready. Saving upwards of a grand a month? Yeah, that offsets the sadness, well, a lot. He gets to ride the bus in the mornings and go to PlayKeepers in the afternoons with his second favorite person in the world, Ms. Sharon. He'll take gym and art and music and best of all, take books out of the library. He'll do more reading and counting and sets. They'll do science and learn dances. He'll get to participate in Play Day and make friends who actually live near us. And he won't look so abnormally huge, surrounded by kids up to age 10. And best of all? I can send him with a peanut butter sandwich for lunch every. damned. day.

Kindergarten rocks in so many ways.

Summer is for all intents and purposes over. The angle of the sun is changing, and the light is trending more gold than yellow. The fantasy football draft is soon and apples will be ready to be picked. Soccer and Girl Scouts and Dance are on the agenda and structure, blessed, blessed structure returns to our lives. We made it. It was a tough eight months but we did it. We survived. We're here. And I feel fine.