In Which I Get Overly Proud of the Kindergartner

She's in the shower and she asks innocently, "Is she really naughty?" She's referring to a classmate who I guess might struggle with some sensory or learning issues. Tonight, Jemma's been telling me about all the times this little one has needed extra help "making good choices."

"No," I tell her. "She's just learning how to be in a classroom. Some kids just take longer than others to learn those kinds of things."

Jemma is incredulous: "But mom, we've been in school for 130 days!"

"Well, I'm sure you're a good friend to her and to everyone, right?" I say.

"Yeah," she says, her voice mixing with the shower steam, "Sometimes I hold her hand and ask if she wants to sit by me on the rug. And Monday she was wearing leopard pants, so I promised her I'd wear my leopard leggings on Tuesday." I think back to yesterday: leopard leggings, purple shirt.

"I bet she loved that," I say.

"Uh-huh," she says, and she finishes up making a potion for her sister to find when it's her turn in the shower next.

*****

Her homework one day was "List five words that describe you." Jemma's list:

AwSoM
Feryis
FredLy
MAD
haPpy

I suppose she thought she should keep it real - you know, talk about how awesome she is, while also admitting that she's occasionally furious and mad.

*****

Her New Year's resolution was, in part, to try more new foods (YESSSSS!), and now at least once a week at the dinner table, she'll pause before a bite of broccoli or cannellini beans or pork chop and ask, "Will you tell Mrs. M?" And I say yes, and I end up texting her lovely teacher the details of just what Jemma tried that night. I'm going to get as much mileage as I can out of that resolution.

*****

Before Spring Break, Jemma came down the stairs one morning, casually sporting a green skirt around her shoulders, with her neck and head sticking through the opening where her waist would normally be. (Additionally, she was wearing a green-and-white striped shirt with navy-and-white striped leggings.) She seemed quite proud of her look, so off to school she went. Fifteen minutes later, a text from her teacher: "Love her style. A skirt as a wrap!" She did it the next day, too (different skirt, of course) and we began referring to her as Project Runway. I think she was trying to start a trend, but sadly, the other kindergarten girls didn't seem to catch on, and her coat interfered with the flounciness of the skirt-as-shawl look, too. I have my fingers crossed for a resurgence later this spring, though.

*****

She wrote a poem yesterday after reading a book of poems and patterning it after one she'd liked:

SLeping

Do you Like Blue? Do You Like red? Do you Like SLeping in your Bed?

do You Like YeLLow? do You Like WHite? do you Like SLePing At nigHt?

She brought it to school this morning, then brought it back home this afternoon with a glowing note on it from her teacher. I was praising her efforts and creativity when she got it out of her folder this afternoon, but she looked less than thrilled.

"What?" I asked.
She pointed to the first line. "I like this line the best."
"Yeah? Why?" I asked.
"The other one . . . there aren't enough words in it," she said.

I was secretly thrilled. I mean, I don't want to brag, but she's basically scanning poems correctly at age six. I see a bright future! Like . . . being an English major! Everyone knows that's where the big money and abundant jobs are, right?

*****

Her teacher and I have decided to keep her in kindergarten forever.

My Very Favorite Writing

I think that if I could freeze my children at any ages they've been so far, I'd pick either 18-24 months (so cute! such chubby cheeks and squeaky voices! and they haven't started saying 'no' too much yet!) and kindergarten. The writing and drawing skills from the kindergarten stage are particularly my favorite, so it is no surprise that I adore every single thing Jemma brings home these days. I love the inventive spelling, the backwards letters, and the scrappy little drawings so much that it's hard to part with any of them, though I do guiltily sneak a fair amount of them into the recycling bin during the day when she's at school. I try to photograph some of my favorites, though. To wit:

I like strawberries. I like cherries. (Other things she "licked" during that stage included friends, donuts, and her family.)

"Me and my family." Awwwww.

A recent self-directed art project with stickers and the most adorable spellings of Halloween words ever.

Speaking of hilarious and adorable writing, Jason and I volunteered in Annie's classroom to help with an oil spill simulation, and this is the thank-you note she wrote us a couple of days later:

That's a keeper, for sure.

Day In the Life, September 2012

Little snapshots of our day today, minus the two meetings I went to at school (because Instagramming photos of myself at the PTA meeting and the 3rd grade Parent Information Night would have certainly seemed creepy and odd):

The Glamour Continues

After I wrote yesterday, I made exciting journeys to Bed Bath & Beyond (a new kitchen trash can! Also: a shower curtain liner and curtain rods!! The excitement was palpable) and Target (birthday supplies for Annie, a new rug for outside our back door). Then I came home and cleaned the office while I waited for the plumber to come roto-root our sewer main, a fun yearly situation that causes us to not be able to use the water for a day or so until the tree roots get ripped out of the pipe and get rid of the clog.

When I went to get the girls from school, it was hot, and they were hot, and the walk home was long and hot and tedious, owing to Annie's broken flip-flop and Jemma's backpack being too heavy. Have I mentioned I was unshowered from my humid morning run (sewer/water situation) and very . . . hot? Annie had some sketchy moments, personality-wise, when we first got home, but she was much happier after some time alone with a book. She reports that her first day was "good," that she "played chase with the boys" at recess (oh, my), that she got to use the laptop computers, and that she starts switching classes for social studies and science to the other third-grade teachers on Thursday, something that makes her feel "like a middle-schooler."

Jemma came out of school wearing a newly-made First Day of School hat, reported the day was "awesome," and collapsed into bed before 7:30 last night. She was significantly less enthusiastic about getting out of bed and ready for school this morning; yesterday was fun and all, she said at breakfast, but "too long," and she'd prefer to stay home today. Nevertheless, off she went in her sweet blue dress and with pigtails in her hair.

My glamourous lifestyle continues. Today featured another super-sweaty, super-humid run; going to the farmers' market and the grocery store; unloading the dishwasher; more laundry; cleaning out the refrigerator; scrubbing tile grout with a toothbrush; scheduling carpools and filling out paperwork for extracurriculars; and purchasing more birthday gifts for a certain couple of family members.

I was talking with a friend yesterday, and we decided that this new schedule mostly means we'll just keep doing all the same things we were doing before, only without a person attached to/following us. And that's basically true. So far, no soap-opera-watching, bon-bon-eating, afternoon napping. I can't complain, though. I shower alone, work out without feeling guilty, and sometimes even sit down to eat my lunch or drink a LaCroix while listening to Pandora and unloading the dishwasher. I miss those little girls of mine, but they're off, doing what little girls should be doing: playing, learning, exploring the wide world. I'm here, enjoying the quiet but also waiting for them to get home.

Unbroken

The girls are at school.

I woke up this morning at 5:20 a.m. thanks to a loud clap of thunder, so I got up, made the coffee, and sat drinking it in the dark. I thought about how, eight years ago, I was exactly one week away from giving birth to Annie. It's the day that feels like the beginning of my experience as a mother, and this day feels like an end. Not THE end, just AN end - to being at home with my girls, to being needed that way, to knowing that my primary job is raising them, feeding them, playing with them, keeping them safe. I could have cried a little this morning, sitting there in the dark, but I didn't, because I knew that if I started it'd be hard to stop, and because I didn't want to let them see me sad on their big first days.

I got them up, fed them breakfast, helped them pack their lunches into their backpacks and put headbands in their hair, took their pictures on the front step, and walked them to school in the rain. Annie was uncertain, a little excited and a little nervous. Jemma was ready, confident, happy. I hugged and kissed Annie when she turned to walk to her 3rd grade line, took Jemma to her door for a final kiss and hug, and then I walked home by myself, swinging my umbrella because the rain had stopped.

Now I am here. It's what I've thought I wanted for years. Time to myself, a little peace and quiet (or "a piece of quiet," as I used to call it when I was small), space to write and think and organize. And I DO want it. It's just a little scary. A little abrupt. Two weeks ago, our family was on a ten-day vacation, every day packed with sunshine and swimming and hiking and constant togetherness. Today, it's silent but for the hum of the dryer and the clicking of my keyboard.

What will I do? Oh, I have a list. There are projects I've been putting off all summer (organizing Jemma's old bedroom into a bona fide office, cleaning out closets, getting back to a regular yoga practice) and projects I've been putting off for eight years (acquiring and filling a fireproof safe, painting the walls in the stairway that have been scuffed since the day we moved in, writing something cohesive and meaningful).

What will I do? Maybe I'll rejoin Netflix just so I can watch the entirety of Friday Night Lights. Maybe I'll read a book a day, run every morning, take a post-lunch nap every afternoon. Maybe I'll get a job. (I almost got one last winter, though I didn't write about it here.) I hope I figure out how to fill every day with a mix of meaningful activities, figure out how to keep doing things that matter, figure out how to stretch myself and try new, hard things.

*****

I read the book Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand earlier this year and, later, was discussing it with a family member who had also read it.

"What did you think?" I asked.

"I thought it really showed how much evil there is in the world, how evil people can be to one another," he said. "What did you think?"

"I thought it was about how incredibly resilient the human spirit can be in spite of unthinkable difficulty," I said.

Hmm.

I still like my answer, but I want to change it. Unbroken was about potential. It was about how every person possesses the potential to act for good or for evil. Both the hero in that story and the villain had one life on this earth, and their stories were a sum of their choices.

I think that's what this time in my life is about, too. Potential. Wide open. One choice at a time.

Hello, Summer

This morning, Annie got ready for school for the last time until September. Considering that the last two mornings have abruptly brought epic bouts of dressing drama, obsession with changing earrings and donning a million Silly Bandz, and actual dragging out of the house five minutes after our usual leaving time, this is sort of a relief. (Sort of.) (Some people in our house do not do well with transitions.)

And thus ends second grade, the last time I'll confidently feel that I "know" what sort of standards and curriculum my child is working with. Annie brought home her writing journal from the year this week. A few choice excerpts:

In September: "On my birthday I love to open Presents because I like to see what People gave me who came to my Party. I also like to eat cake because somtimes it is cheesecake and I love cheesecake."

On November 28, 2011: "On Thanksgiving I went to my grandma and grandpa's house and saw my cousins. At lunch we had turkey, cranberry sauce, macht potatos, stuffing, and gravy. And rolls. It was fun. We also had grape juice. I have a lot more to say but that would take forever."

On January 6, 2012: "If I could fly, I would make friends with birds and build a nest. If I was a robin my favorite season would be spring."

On January 19, 2012: "When I got my ears pirst I was a little nerves. I was so happy and excited to show my grandpa and my dad! My sister covered her eyes. After that, I had a Petacire. I tried to pick the same color of my earrings. It wasn't the exact same color."

On February 6, 2012: "On Saturday my mom and dad went to a wedding and my grandma and grandpa took care of me and my sister. My grandpa is pretty silly."

"On spring break I went to my grandma's house for Easter. I decided to wash my moms car in fifty-one degree whether and I was so cold I sat in the bucket of hot water! I went to my cousins house on wednsday and had lots of fun. I went to a park and got cookies while we were at the park because there was a shop called toms moms cookies. My cousins names are Berit and Marta. We sometimes call Berit B and Marta Mart. They are both girls. My sister went too. One day I got into a fight with Berit. My sisters name is Jemma. Me and Jemma stayed for two and a half days. My Aunts name is Lisa and my uncles name is Trever. He is my dads brother. They are very silly together. Me and Jemma had so much fun! P.S. I am the oldest kid in the family.

*****

Right now, I'm full of ambitious plans to do a small amount of daily "school" stuff with the girls this summer. We all do better with a little structure in our days, so I've stocked up on journals and flashcards, workbooks and crayons, and I'm hoping to start each morning with an hour or so of fun-yet-educational activities. I'm picturing me with my coffee and the girls with their heads bent happily over a sheet of paper, or perhaps a mini writing lesson on our chalkboard easel, or maybe one girl doing the yoga DVD while I do math flashcards with the other one. I'm sure this little fantasy of mine is far from reality, but I'm going to give it the old college try anyway. I'm going to loosely organize our learning by theme (switching it up every week or two) and I've asked the girls to brainstorm topics they'd like to learn more about. Here's Annie's list:

China
the human body
plants
snakes
Laura Ingalls Wilder book study
Susan B. Anthony
Vincent Van Gogh
okapis
car engines
Austria
Jamaica
race and skin color

Sooooooooo . . . that's a nice, broad cross-section, huh?

*****

Just this minute there are exactly zero construction workers in or around my house, a state that has been a rarity since the Monday in early April when the blamming began. We have plants, mulch and sod in our backyard, a fence around the hot tub, tile in the laundry room, and a washer and dryer coming on Monday. I'm sure it will be weeks before it all truly feels finished (trim to paint! table backordered! nothing on the walls! rugs! planters!), but it is nearly so, and I could not be more ready to have my house back. Just in time, it'll be the three of us girls most days for the next three months. I intend to make it good, or at least as good as it can be.

Hello, summer.

End of an Era

Since September of 2007, I've spent a chunk of every school year driving someone to preschool. On Monday, I did it for the last time ever.

I still remember exactly how the first day of preschool went for Annie. I had never dropped one of my babies off at school before. Jemma was only eight months old, still in the infant car seat, when we brought Annie into her classroom and I hugged her good-bye. I went home, cried a little, put Jemma down for her morning nap, and cleaned the heck out of a bathroom (even bleaching the bath toys) with no "helpers" in sight.

I cried a little on Monday, too. Jemma stayed to play on the playground for a few minutes after I picked her up, then we walked out to our car and let the gate swing shut behind us for the last time. She skipped ahead, her bag full of a journal that shows just how far she's come this year: her self-portrait, once a circle with legs coming right out of the chin, is now adorably accurate as body parts go; her letters, once backwards, are now formed neatly and correctly; the words she knows how to read now uncountable. She's ready, surely, for kindergarten in the fall. But I'm going to miss the sweet mornings at the happy school in the red brick church.

Fortunately, Unfortunately

We checked out an old, classic version of Fortunately, Unfortunately from the library a few weeks ago, and the girls were immediately taken by the literary device. They were so intrigued that they both wrote their own Fortunately, Unfortunately books and wrapped them up to give to Jason as Christmas presents, so part of our Christmas morning involved the two of us reading said books aloud, simultaneously praising the "creativity" and dying inside of laughter (hint: the books involve pirates, monsters, witches, grandmothers, ice-skating, and frogs). After a day like today, here's my version.

Fortunately, we all woke up in our warm house this morning with plenty of food, clothes, and all the basic necessities plus some.

Unfortunately, Annie started crying at breakfast and didn't want to go to school for the second day in a row.

Fortunately, one of the 29475736 things I said must have helped, because after thirty minutes of crying she did indeed get dressed, pulled herself together, and happily went off to school.

Unfortunately, I don't know which of the things I said was the magical thing.

Fortunately, Jemma went to school as happily as she always does.

Unfortunately, Jason and I had to meet with a lawyer to update our will and estate plan right after we dropped her off at school, which led to us spending an hour or so pondering those scenarios you really never want to ponder.

Fortunately, it was quick and painless and we are on the same page with these horrible decisions.

Unfortunately, it is winter.

Fortunately, it was sunny and I pulled Jemma in the sled to pick Annie up from school.

Unfortunately, we were all pretty cold by the time we walked home.

Fortunately, the girls were full of love for me and one another and we had a cozy night of piano-playing, braiding hair, bath bombs, and stories in my bed.

Unfortunately, Annie felt yucky and sad again right before bedtime, leading me to Google yucky and sad things after she finally was soothed to sleep.

Fortunately, there was a new Modern Family on tonight, and Jason got home just in time to watch it with me.

Unfortunately, I feel the beginnings of a sore throat and a sense of dread about tomorrow morning and one child's predicted emotional state.

Fortunately, I know we'll figure it out.

Not Seamless

The transition, that is, from two-plus weeks of lounging and gift-giving, oversleeping and overeating, traveling and togetherness back to the first, real, down-to-business day of January 2012. There was an hour (plus) of crying last night before bed and another hour (plus) of crying this morning before school.

It was a new experience for us, a child who was expressing this very high level of anxiety about something she'd previously never blinked at, and Jason and I reacted differently.

"Stop it," said Jason, because he, truly, is a person who doesn't really worry, who - aside from one specific work-related event this past year - doesn't have anxiety about things. If his brain starts to worry, he stops. Simple as that. But his advice, given more kindly than I've illustrated here, doesn't work for this particular blonde seven-year-old.

My tack: Walk the fine line between sympathetic comfort and firm instruction. Say, "It's normal to feel like this," and, "Everybody feels like this sometimes," and "I know you're brave and strong and you're going to have a great day!" and "Well, you're not sick and you're not staying home." When those things didn't work and the anxiety ramped up to a level that made me think, Psych consult in aisle four, please, I pulled out a few other things, like this gem of a conversation:

A: "I'm just feeling so terrible!"
Me: "Well, that's weird, because you just had a great day sledding, playing outside, having hot cocoa, practicing your piano, and playing with your sister, so it seems like you're feeling fine."
A: "I'm going to tell Mrs. F. that I'm sick and I need to come home."
Me: "If you call me from school, I'm going to ask to talk to Mrs. F. and I'm going to tell her that you're fine."
A: "But what if I'm sick and I need to come home?"
Me: "You throw up, I'll come get you."

and also the much-avoided, for-emergencies-only "I'll lie in bed with you until you can calm down and fall asleep."

As much as I put a brave face on it and focused on getting her to school this morning, 99% sure that all she needed was one day back in her usual routine, of course I worried about her all day long:  talked about her on the treadmill this morning, kept my phone close to me all day, and gave her the biggest hug when she came out of school smiling and reported that she'd had a good day. Pshew.

Preschool, Observed

As luck would have it in this, the most ridiculously busy wonderful time of the year, I've been volunteering in Jemma's classroom every single day this week. Tuesday was the day we celebrated her birthday and the birthday of her good friend H., who also has a December birthday that will occur over the holiday break and who (sadly) is moving out of state after the new year.

H's mom and I planned a joint treat - ice cream with lots of fun toppings - and converged on the classroom to set up the treat and enjoy circle time with the birthday girls. We'd scooped all the ice cream, set out all the toppings at the two snack tables, and then we stood for a minute, watching as the kids sang a few of their adorable holiday songs, including one about Santa to the tune of "Bingo." When they were done, having ho- ho'd their way through the final chorus, Mrs. C. said, "Good job! You remembered all the verses! Kiss your brains!" and, you know what, they did. Proudly and immediately and confidently kissed their own open palms and planted a kiss right on the tips of their heads.

When do we stop doing these things?

*****

Today I was the Holiday! Party! Helper!, which meant showing up half-way through the classroom time to (again) set up the day's snack, clean up all the requisite hot chocolate spills, and then to assist with the pinata-whacking for Las Posadas. I was laying out Christmass-y napkins next to plates of Clementines and Rice Krispie treats when a little boy disengaged from the circle and came up to me.

"Who are YOU?" he asked.
"I'm Mrs. D." I said brightly. "It's nice to meet you."
He sat down at a seat. "I play Mortal Kombat every day at my house! Pow!" He was thrilled with his announcement. I looked at my friend A., my eyebrows at the ceiling, a smile frozen on my face.
"Gosh, that's interesting information," I told the little boy.
"Yeah!" he continued, "I'm a GAMER!" and A. and I almost died on the spot.

*****

Tomorrow is a field trip to sing those adorable holiday songs at a retirement home. God only knows what will happen there.

First Day of School

I have more to say - about this former second grade teacher now having an actual second-grader, about how proud I am of these two curious, smart, happy, silly, energetic, kind, creative girls, about what I'm going to do with my Twelve! Hours! a Week! when they're both at school from now on - but today there is only time for these snapshots of the way they were on the morning of September 6, 2011:  on our front steps, tummies full of oatmeal, wearing matching skirts and hugging each other good-bye on such an exciting day.  I didn't cry, but even while I was pressing down on the shutter it felt a little like an out-of-body experience.  I have kids, I thought.  They go to school.

What's New, Bullet-Style

• Last Friday afternoon, Jason and I sat in a title office and signed closing papers and a big, horrible check to finally sell our South Haven house.  It is hard to know how to describe the way it feels to sell a house that was the first big thing we owned together and to which we brought home baby Annie from the hospital.  It is also hard to know how to feel about the fact that it took nearly SIX YEARS on the market and us bringing an amount of money to the table that would buy a used car for that thing to finally sell.  I'll go with . . . bizarre.  Surreal.  We came home and drank champagne, toasting to "one mortgage!"  
• Jemma, as I previously mentioned, taught herself to swim.  Early last week, she was still getting a snootful of water every time she tried to remember how to "hum" underwater to blow bubbles.  Today, during the minutes when she wasn't asking (at 4:00) if we could "eat lunch soon," and during the minutes when she wasn't being irrationally weepy about the tiniest boo-boo ever on her big toe, she was swimming half the length of the kid's pool underwater, popping up every single time and looking at me with big eyeballs through her goggles.  "Mom!  Did you see THAT?"  I definitely did, little fishie.
• Jemma also taught herself to whistle, which she now does at every possible opportunity, including in church.  It is almost too cute to tell her to stop.
• Annie and I spent an hour this afternoon going through the giant pile of crap she brought home from school in those last few days.  My favorite things are her artwork and an entry she wrote in her journal about her parents.  It ends, "I was the first baby that they ever had."  
• Michigan strawberries are at the farmer's market!  (And in my tummy!)  Time to make shortcake.
• I began the day at 6:15 a.m. with yoga class outside at Reed's Lake.  It was a clear, cool morning, and doing sun salutations facing the rising sun with the grass under my mat felt like being on vacation.
• Our fish Priscilla died.  What?  I never mentioned a fish before?  That's because we'd only had her for about a month, ever since the day Jason and Annie came home from the Science on Saturdays program I'd signed them up for - with a fish!  There was NO MENTION of a fish in the promotional materials.  And yet there she was, in her clear Tupperware container which would remain her home forever, until we flushed her down the toilet this morning.  Is there any child, anywhere, who does not have a memory of flushing a goldfish down the toilet while they cry a little?  RIP, Priscilla.  You were a spunky goldfish on our kitchen counter for nearly five weeks.

Bring on Summer 2011

Jemma's been done with school for what seems like weeks now, tagging along with me everywhere that I go.  And Annie's last half-day of first grade is tomorrow.  So today felt like the last, best chance I had to get things DONE around here.  I may have tried to do too much (run, Target, library, groceries, set up interviews, phone call for new writing project, teacher thank-you notes, creation of summer boredom-buster activities (see below), cooking dinner, filling out paperwork for Girl Scouts and allergy testing, and topping it all off with a family trip to Jersey Junction), but I think we're really ready.

Annie has cheerfully and not-so-cheerfully done chores and saved her money these last six weeks or so, and Jason and I decided to go ahead and order her rollerblades as a surprise gift for her spectacular school year.  We gave them to her tonight right after dinner, then headed straight outside to strap them on and skate twice around the block, up and down the driveway practicing turns, and then all the way to the ice cream shop and back.  One fall.  Three tears.  Huge, proud smile and grateful little girl getting her "spend" money out of its envelope to pay us her portion tonight.

Not wanting Jemma to be left out of the action, we got her something fun for summer that we knew she'd love, too.  She whacks that ball at least half the time we pitch it at her, sometimes knocking it straight into us, always laughing and talking the entire time.

 After a week or two of brainstorming ideas, I finally put this together today, just in the nick of time.  It's Annie's "I'M BORED" Board - get it? - and it's full of fun and educational activities to stave off the summer whining and backsliding.  The whole thing went together in less than an hour, made up of one extra-sturdy (puffy?) poster board, four lengths of ribbon attached to the board with four brads, and about 25 activities divided between four columns:  Write, Do, Learn, and Create.

The I'm Bored Board could have as many or as few categories as you wanted, and you can simply write the task on an index card, label the other side of the index card with the category, and attach it to the ribbon with tape.  Here are a few of our board's activities:

Write:  a comic strip; a story about our family; all the Spanish words you know; a letter to your teacher; a poem; a postcard.

Do:  go for a run; make cookies; weed and water the garden; make up a dance routine; yoga; play catch; jump rope; make an obstacle course.

Create:  paint rocks; draw a self-portrait; make a birthday card; paint using pointilism; paint outside with the art easel.

Learn:  play math games on the computer; research a bug; read a book outside; do math flashcards; pick a country from the globe and learn about it; practice piano.

That should totally take care of summer boredom, right?

*****

I'm predictably wistful about sending our big girl off to her very last day of what's been such a wonderful school year, and predictably amazed at how quickly it has gone.  Heading home from ice cream tonight, I think it was the first time our family has journeyed there and back without anybody in a stroller.  I remember making the trip the summer that Jemma was an infant and Annie was two; both girls rode in the Chariot together, Jemma still on the little papoose board.  The next summer, when the girls were one and three, we'd often take separate strollers (The Fighting) or maybe have Jemma in a stroller while Annie rode her tricycle, one of us pushing her along with our foot.  The last two summers, Annie has been able to ride her bike or scooter or just walk, but Jemma has always been in a stroller for the trip.

Tonight, though:  Annie flailed gracelessly along the sidewalk, refusing to hold anyone's hand while she paid careful attention to the cracks in the concrete; Jemma pedaled her blue-mouthed self right behind her sister, flying down the hills and then churning her legs stubbornly on the way up; Jason and I walked behind, watching, holding hands, feeling lucky to have another long summer stretching wholly before us.

End-of-Year Teacher Gifts

In the last few days, I've seen Facebook discussion threads asking for teacher gift suggestions, talked to a friend about what she's doing this year for her child's awesome teacher, and sent my contribution in towards my daughter's class gift.  End-of-year teacher gifts are a hot topic right now - and, as a former teacher, it's a topic that's close to my heart.  Especially in this economy, especially in the current climate of cuts to education and de-valuing of the profession in the comment section of every online article, it's so important to thank teachers for a job well done, for a year of tending to our littles.

So, what do the teachers want?

Here's what they don't want:

• a mug.  Trust me, they have received 1,000 mugs already.  No, really.  1,000.
• anything apple-themed, no matter how nice it is.  (I once received a beautiful, expensive, lovely crystal apple from Tiffany & Co.  I exchanged it.)

Here's what they do want:

• a gift card.  Most especially a gift card to a bookstore.  (Do you know ANY teachers who aren't personally passionate about reading?  Me, either.)  This is great because they can buy books for themselves, books for their classroom, books as gifts for others, books for their own children or family members, or any of the other sundry items that bookstores sell, like cards, coffee, calendars, music, home decor, stuffed animals, magazines, etc.  Bonus:  get the gift card to a LOCAL bookstore and feel especially good about supporting a small business.  
• an item (WITH GIFT RECEIPT) that you are quite sure they would like/use based on your knowledge of their hobbies or their life.  This one is trickier, because you really have to know the teacher in an outside-the-classroom way, but if you do, you can pull it off.  I was happily gifted with a great running jacket, a silver charm bracelet, a gift certificate to a nearby fancy restaurant, a Nigella Lawson cookbook, a spa day, and a Kate Spade purse over the course of my career, and I loved every single one of those gifts.
• a small, personalized or homemade token (homemade granola, cookies, picture your child painted) PAIRED WITH a gift card in a similar theme.  This is a creative option if you're the crafty/baking type.  For example, you could make some biscotti, wrap them in cellophane, attach a little "Thanks a Latte!" card, and then include a gift card to Starbucks or your local coffee shop.  See how it's thoughtful (and a little more effort than just a gift card), but still allows the teacher to buy whatever they like the most?  Win-win.
• a donation in their name to the school foundation or annual fund.  This is great for a teacher who probably doesn't need or want much in the way of consumable goods, and it's a nice way to publicly recognize the great year your child has had as well as your financial support of the school.

No matter what gift you choose to give (or even if you're simply contributing to the class/group gift) the most important thing is that you include some type of personal note to the teacher.  This is not just a generic "You're #1 Teacher!" card; this is an actual, handwritten note that specifically thanks the teacher for the ways in which they have nurtured your child this year.  At the end of a long, exhausting year of teaching, it is so affirming for a teacher to hear that you recognize, value, and are grateful for the important work they did.  

Tucked into Nigella Lawson's How to Be a Domestic Goddess, I still have one of those notes, an excerpt of which reads as follows:

M and I would like to thank you for a job beautifully done.  A had her problems adjusting to the demands of second grade and a brand new teacher.  You gained her confidence quickly, showed her how much you cared about her progress, and before we knew it, we had a beaming second grader, ready to burst out the door each morning to start another busy day in Mrs. D's classroom.

I have a note somewhere, too, from a long-ago student which reads:

Dear Mrs. D.,

If I had the choice of getting thirty dollars or coming to live with you, I would come to live with you.

Love,

M. 

The point is this:  It's June, and there's probably a teacher around that deserves an end-of-year gift.  So go buy a gift card, take the time to write a sincere note, and make a teacher's day.

Preschool Progress

Jemma's first "progress report" came home from preschool in her little red bag today.  I put progress report in quotes because, come on, they're three; how much progress can they have made with Play-Doh and "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" in the approximately nine two-hour sessions they've had so far this year?

In spite of my skepticism, I smiled when I read it.

"We are very pleased with how beautifully Jemma has adapted to our classroom and her progress is very appropriate.  She's a delight!"


Last Thursday, Jason and I got to take Jemma to her classroom for a Parents' Night (no siblings!) and get a little glimpse into how she spends her hours there.  When we brought Annie to this night three years ago, I remember locking eyes with Connie across the room and exchanging looks of "holy-crap-my-kid's-in-preschool-and-we-really-aren't-in-college-anymore" while watching Annie and Ben do their thing.  This time, everything just seemed normal.  It feels normal to have a pre-schooler.  It feels normal to stand back and watch her frost a sugar cookie, sing a song about a worm, recite a nursery rhyme with motions.

Jemma was so proud to show us what she does, and so poised among her classmates.  She exudes a bright, happy confidence and she glibly calls out every answer when Miss Ruth and Miss Diane ask questions.  She folds her hands to pray before she eats, she asks for a million glasses of water, and she is not the very last one done eating.   She knows how to write all her letters, spells STOP and ANNA and DAD and LOVE with letter tiles.  She can zip her coat.  She wants to empty the contents of her red bag the second I pick her up from the playground because she cannot wait one moment more to show me the things she has made.

It's true.  She is a delight.

Progress

Though summer is clearly long over, we loved our family's summer list so much that we decided to do the same thing at the start of every season.  So there's a fall list on the chalkboard by the back door, and we're chipping away at it.  Also:

• Thanks to a resurgence of interest in cooking by yours truly, we're cooking and baking with pumpkin (pumpkin pancakes and pumpkin seed brittle, so far); on Wednesday night, we drank pumpkin beer after the kiddos were in bed.  

• This morning we got pumpkins for the girls, brought them home and immediately glittered them a la Martha Stewart.

• Jason took Annie to the bank to open her very own savings account with some birthday/chore money.  She came home with a green leather booklet.  When I asked if she had to sign her name, she signed meaningfully and said, "Four times."

• The end-of-the-day, beginning-of-first-grade, I-have-lost-all-coping-skills meltdowns have really tapered off, just like every parent of an older child said they would after a month or so.  Which is good, because for a couple weeks there, it felt like we had a three-year-old and a two-year-old.  (There was an incident that involved glow-in-the-dark pajamas at the Old Navy at the Rivertown Crossings mall after I had taken the girls to see Toy Story 3 on a chilly Friday afternoon that ended with me carrying Annie out of the mall and down the escalator while she straight-arm whacked me on the back the entire time, Jemma following along behind.)  Parents of younger children, flip your calendars ahead to the September of your child's first-grade year and block it off.  You're going to need a lot of babysitters, alcohol, and parenting books to get through that.

• Perhaps related to the progress above, we've instituted a behavior modification reward system here, too.  After a (different) epic meltdown two weeks ago, my teacher brain finally kicked in while I was listening to her scream and yell in her time-out.  What we need to do is eliminate the behaviors we don't want, and reward the ones we do, just like I used to do in my classroom . . . and, cha-ching!  I remembered The Marble Jar.  The Marble Jar was the way my classes could earn special days.  Every time the class cleaned up an activity before time ran out, or all remembered their homework, or walked quietly in the halls, or did well for a substitute, they earned marbles in a jar.  When the jar was filled, they got to choose a reward - pajama day, board game day, outdoor day, etc.  So Annie and I sat down and listed the Never OK behaviors (hitting or hurting, mean words or names, rudeness, and not listening) and the Good Choices (kind words, being helpful, listening, doing your best, and good manners), then wrote them on a piece of orange construction paper that now hangs on our fridge.  Each behavior can earn or lose a marble in the jar, which sits on the side of the fireplace mantel.  When they fill the jar (it's about 2/3 full), they'll get to choose a reward.  Watching Annie explain it all to Jemma the next morning was the best part.  They love to do something helpful, often even working together, and many meltdowns-in-the-making have been nipped in the bud by the reminder that they could lose a marble from the jar.  I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner.

• I have become moderately obsessed with creating a viable mudroom/back entry to the house in my basement, the stairs to which are a part of our back door entry area.  I would very much like winter 2010/2011 to not feature snowpants and boots lying to dry all across our kitchen floor.  Road blocks to progress in this area include the bins and piles of random shit scattered around down there (partly by me, but primarily by someone else in this house who is much more of a pack-rat and who believes in saving things like Raiders Starter jackets and empty Wheaties boxes with Michael Jordan on the cover from 1988, ahem); the complete and total unfinished-ness of the basement itself, with its cement walls and floors, plywood "walls" in random places, and drains in the floor; the creepy coal room; the very small amount of water that occasionally seeps down one wall and across the floor (luckily, to the drain!); the lack of desire to have a bunch of construction nonsense going on at our house for weeks; approximately $20,000.  But.  But!  I do have a guy coming to give me an estimate on waterproofing it on Monday.  We'll see what he says, and go from there.

Homework

Annie started having homework this week.  This isn't "choose something to bring for show-and-tell," either; first grade homework is real-deal homework:  writing math patterns, reading aloud for ten minutes, singing songs in Spanish.  She's supposed to practice her math facts, which we fit in by doing flashcards while she's in the bathtub at night.  There's a weekly Mystery Bag to fill with a secret item and bring to school so others can hypothesize about its properties and guess at its contents.  She's supposed to "work with the star words" a few days a week, too, a vague instruction that I think might vex me if not for my stash of teacher-ideas from years past.  So we dumped the Scrabble tiles into a bowl on the coffee table where they're always available, and yesterday she picked five "star words" to make with the tiles and played around to discover which other words we could make by changing just one letter.  Today we're going to write them in shaving cream.  Before bed, she reads the family a chapter from her current book.  We all sit on the couch and listen as she flies through the words.

Ten minutes a day?  I think it's more like twenty, or twenty-five.  And guess who else wants to "do homework"?  Jemma threw such a fit on the first afternoon that Annie was sitting at the kitchen table, creating a repeating pattern and a growing pattern, that I had to stop making chicken pot pies and create a sheet of "homework" for her, too.  She practiced writing the letter R (her choice) and showed it proudly to Jason when he came home.  Every day, I make up a new little activity for her, too.

I guess this is our life now, October 2010 until . . . May of 2025, when Jemma graduates from high school.  But I am totally going to make Jason take over with the math starting in middle school . . .

First Day of School

This morning was the beginning of our new normal around here: Annie at school all day, every day; Jemma at preschool two mornings a week. Back from our weekend up north, I scrambled yesterday afternoon and evening to pack Annie's lunch, get today's clothes laid out, post Annie's new morning routine, and gather all the paperwork and cameras we would need for today so that this morning could go smoothly. We took pictures on the front stoop, like we have every year since Annie was headed off to preschool the week she turned three. Things have changed a little:

She picks out her own clothes now, does her own hair, paints her own toenails, reads the checklist to make sure she has everything in her backpack before she heads out the door. She has friends with whom to walk to school (moms still watching from nearby):

She had a great, long day of first grade. Around 11:15, the time I had to leave the house last year to start walking to pick her up, I felt fidgety and a little sad. It felt so strange not to be getting ready to go get her. It felt odd to eat lunch without her, knowing she was eating at a long cafeteria table with her friends. But she went off with a confident smile and a note in her lunchbox, and she came home telling me her new teacher is "even nicer" than her much-loved kindergarten teacher. She came home exhausted, too, and asked to lie down and rest for half an hour. When I went to check on her, she had fallen asleep the wrong way on her bed, on top of the covers, and was sleeping the open-mouthed sleep of exhaustion that can apparently be brought on by full days of school that last until 3:30. I let her sleep for an hour, then woke her up, and she whimpered her way through dinner, making me wonder if she's getting sick or if the transition to first grade is going to wipe her out even more than I'd anticipated.

Then there was Jemma. She's seemed unsure and less-than-completely-enthusiastic about preschool when people have mentioned it to her in the last few weeks, and she wasn't that happy about having her picture taken on the front steps this morning, either. So I wasn't sure what she'd do when we walked up the steps of the school and went to find her classroom. But she was immediately taken with the fact that she's in Annie's old classroom and made herself right at home in the kitchen while I met briefly with her teachers.

I didn't leave her there for actual school today - that will happen on Thursday - but she did stay long enough to have to use the bathroom (a just-her-size toilet) and wash her hands. While she was sudsing up at the teeny little sink, she said, "This is just my size! What a lucky classroom!" and I hope she'll do OK on Thursday when I kiss her good-bye.

And just like that, it's really fall.

Annie's Last Day of Kindergarten (Cue the Tears)

Nobody at this house can believe it, but today was Annie's last day of kindergarten. She is sad. She loves her teacher and can't imagine first grade being any good without her. I am sad. I love the half-day schedule and wish there was a way to have her go to school just in the mornings for, oh, four or five years. I was OK with saying, "I have a kindergardener." I do not want to say, "I have a first-grader." She is already getting so much taller; her cheeks have lost their chubbiness.

When I picked her up from school today, it was pouring rain, and we ran to the car sharing the single princess umbrella I grabbed on my way out the door. Our plan was to go out to lunch, to have some special Mommy/Annie time, but her heart wasn't in it. Instead we came home and she moped around and wrote her teacher a sad, sad letter about how much she will miss her. I watched, remembering that feeling, a little, and wondering what to do to make it better.

During quiet time, I snuck out to run some errands. I came back in the door with a pile of little chapter books to sustain her this summer and some new art supplies so she can keep a journal and make little chapbooks when she wants to write about things. Stickers, a stapler, some new colors. She cheered up.

Even better, the sun was shining again, and it was hot and steamy, so we all packed up and went to the pool for the rest of the afternoon, where her head was hardly ever visible because it was either underwater diving for rings or running by in a flash to go down the waterslide again. A little more cheer.

We came home, threw together a turkey sausage-spinach-garlic-pasta thing for dinner. While we were eating, Annie said, "Raise your hand if you want to talk about going to Jersey Junction!" and waved her hand wildly in the air, and what could we say but yes? So in spite of the fact that it was already 7:00 and we were still in our bathing suits, we walked to get ice cream (rainbow and lemon sherbet for the girls, coffee and butter pecan for the grown-ups) and we didn't hurry either. We ran into friends and let the kids trade licks and walk balance beams around the ice cream store for a long time before finally walking back home and tucking very sleepy little sleepyheads into bed way past bedtime. A kindergarten graduate gets to stay up late and party with ice cream at least once, right?

And now the summer stretches before us, so full of unscheduled promise and possibility, and I want to do so many things with them this year. I want to make plans and be intentional; I want to leave days and weeks wide open and be spontaneous; I want to make time for them to dig in the dirt and create art and tell their stories and dance and swim and swing and run up and down the sidewalks and catch fireflies and have lemonade stands. It is June, and it all feels possible.

Tomorrow, we are going to make a list of all the summer things we want to do and see and experience. But tonight the clouds roll in again and I want to take a minute and sit here, a little wistful, and be amazed that my daughter, who in my mind's eye is still just a scrawny newborn, or maybe just on the verge of turning two or three, is done with a whole year of real school. She is nearly six. She is a first-grader.

Four Days