Shayel - my oldest - on her first day of kindie
“And how are you doing?”
This was the question posed to me by our sweet and infinitely competent school secretary when we were talking about my oldest and her transition from half-day kindie to full-day first grade.
I just raised an eyebrow, shrugged with non committal nonchalance and said “eh, doesn’t matter to me”.
She gave a little nervous chuckle and finished filling out the receipt for the lunch money I had just handed over to her – the lunch money I had given her, for the record, because I have no interest in making my child’s lunches and as long as we have the money, I will rely on her school to provide her with whatever sloppy muck they have in the cafeteria that day.
This is not the first time I’ve felt a bit like an ogre when responding to questions about how I feel regarding my children going off to school. Don’t get me wrong, I get along well with my girls so far (you better believe I relish every moment of prepubescent ease), they don’t fight too much with each other, I have ignored them enough that they play independently and we pretty much stay out of each other’s way. But that doesn’t mean I don’t rejoice a little when it’s time to leave them with another adult…an adult who is paid by the state to educate them! God bless the USA!
However, as nice as it is for my oldest to go to school, in many ways it’s not helpful. That’s the other comment I get, “oh, it must be nice just having one at home now”. Yeah, except that now my youngest doesn’t have a big sister to entertain her.
Back to school time brings back all the comments and questions that make me feel like a pariah in the middle-upper class, highly educated, ethnically diverse world that is my neighborhood school. It also brings the expectations – PTO, bake sales, fundraisers that make me throw up a little in my mouth, classroom volunteering… and the worst – after school pick up chit chat. Oh how I loathe after school pick up chit chat. Thanks to God Almighty for ipods with headphones and knitting projects.
Welcome back to school moms! I raise my martini to you in salute and leave you with this benediction: May you rise above the school room din and stand tall as an uninvolved parent (well, except maybe for those bakesales, cupcake frosting is damn tasty).
I got the same question about my middle child. “He’s in school now, don’t you miss him?”
After spending the summer keeping him from cutting up everything in the house with scissors, using all the tape trying to build robots, hiding the batteries (for those robots again), replanting as much as he could INSIDE, filling the yard with rocks, waking up the baby, initiating wrestling session with his big brother and then crying when he got hurt, getting into the tools and losing them, building trains tracks in the middle of the house that nobody else was allowed to touch.
Aye yi yi! It’s time for full day kindergarten.