Day with the Dinosaurs

So have you been to the L.A. County Natural History Museum in Exposition Park? I had not been there for years, maybe even 30 years. When the kids and I went there today, I was reminded of what a great place it is for kids and adults.

First of all, it’s everything you imagine a great urban museum should be--a cool old building, grand rotundas with marble walls, huge exhibit halls, floors polished to a high shine. The first things we saw when we walked in were giant replicas of Tyrannosaurus Rex and Triceratops fossils. The kids were won over, right there. Then there were the standard, but still cool, exhibit halls of all natural history museums filled with gems, Native American artifacts, stuffed animals in their “natural” habitats. On the bottom floor there’s a Discovery Center for kids filled with hands-on exhibits, along with an insect zoo that has every creepy crawly you never wanted to see.

The best thing about our day was talk given by a docent at the museum about a Tyrannosaurus Rex named Thomas. During this talk, a life-size, very realistic puppet of a Thomas came out to be part of the demonstration. Thomas grunted, snarled, and stared at all of us like we were prey. I noticed Ryan at one point curled up on the floor hiding his eyes, while Lauren scrambled near me and clutched my arm. The whole presentation was fascinating and scary, and the docent did a fabulous job acting and pretending to be nervous while teaching us about T-Rexes. Kudos to the museum staff for this show!

It was a great way to spend a dreary day in L.A!

Recent Quotes from Ryan

“Is he a cactus man?” He was talking about Gumby.

Ryan was recently showing me a house he constructed with our toy bricks. “Here’s a wall, here’s a door, here’s a bridge, here’s an old gun I keep under the stairs . . .” What?!

“Mommy! I can spell HBO!” Did I tell you he’s a genius?

“When’s the snow gonna come?”

“Look everyone! I have no pants on!” He said this one as he was pulling up his shorts in front of Lauren’s kindergarten class so that it looked like, well, like he had no pants on. Sometimes being a parent makes me swell with pride.

Lauren Is Six!

When kids are younger, they often have a comfort object. It might be a blanket, a doll, a bear, their binky, something. But my kids had me. When they needed comfort, they needed me. I tried to introduce comfort objects. They slept with lambies, I shoved binkies into their mouths, Lauren even sucked her thumb for a while, but nothing ever stuck. I was their comfort object. I loved it, but at times I resented it, too (that’s what sleep deprivation will do, I guess).

I remember feeling a little guilty about it. Was I too indulgent? As the mother of a young child, I’d often strike up conversations with people or neighbors about motherhood. Often they would remark things like, “I’ve never seen a baby who doesn’t love their bottle!” A well-meaning family member once said, “YOU are their comfort object. I’ve never seen that before!” Maybe my own mother questioned it, too. I don’t know, because I don’t think she’d ever tell me if she did. I know all their words were meant with love, but I felt a tinge of judgment, too.

You know, when my kids nursed, Lauren always touched my neck. Her hand would go back and forth, back and forth, massaging my neck. Ryan would touch my face. He’d stroke my cheek, over and over. The whole feeling was so warm and secure. I loved that feeling I could give to my kids.

Well, now Lauren is 6. Her 6th birthday was November 14th. Amid windy and smoky skies (many parts of LA were on fire on this day), we had a birthday party at Jolly Jumps. I invited her whole kindergarten class, and a lot of them came. The kids jumped like crazy for 1 ½ hours, they climbed the rock wall, and then we had pizza, juice boxes and cupcakes. I sent them all home with bags of candy and a balloon. Lauren loved her birthday. “The best birthday ever!” she crowed.

Of course, we are in a new place. The moms’ faces are all new, but I like all of them, and I work in Lauren’s class on Tuesdays, and I love all their kids, too. I would have loved for Ainsley, Justin S., Anna, Justin L., and Daniel to all have been at her party, but the new group I had was lovely. Lauren waves excitedly at her friends as we walk into school everyday, saying at the top of her lungs, “Hi Gracie!” or, “Hi, Karlee!” She loves school, she loves her new friends, and I know their parents’ love and work have made them into the darling kids that they are. We have so much to be grateful for here in our new home.

Our school, our new routine, and our new friends are the new comfort objects for Lauren. She doesn’t cling to me anymore, she doesn’t need me whenever she’s upset, and she doesn’t cry at the window (like she did in preschool) when I drive away from school. Some of this is because she’s getting older, and some of it is the secure foundation Rick and I have set for her, and some of it is the solid classroom environment Mrs. Vesey has established. After leaving our beautiful home in Spokane, and being so unsure of this new city I knew nothing about, I have so much to be thankful for here. My kids love Camarillo and Southern California.

So tonight, December 5th, our family had another one of our famed movie nights (that is, famed among the four of us). We make pizza, put on a family movie and gorge ourselves in front of the television. We love it! But tonight was a little different, because halfway through the movie, Lauren sidled up next to me on the couch. “I want to sit next to Mommy for a minute,” she announced. I was actually about to go to the kitchen and start doing the dishes when she got up, but I decided to let her sit with me for a few minutes before I got up to do my nightly chores. And you know what? She curled up onto my lap, and then she stroked my neck, just like she used to when she was a baby. I can’t remember the last time she did that, and it just filled my cup. In some ways, she’s so grown up, but tonight, she was my little girl again.

Odds and Ends

I never found Ryan's quarter. His doctor told me to stop looking. It will come out, or it already has, and I missed it. He seems fine.

The kids got matching pajamas for Halloween. Aren't they cute? Just ignore the flash glare on the refrigerator.

For Halloween, the kids were Spiderman and Cleopatra. They looked so great! I really missed my friends this Halloween, since Halloween at our house had become something of a tradition in Spokane. Luckily, I was busy enough to not dwell on this. My aunt Betsey and grandmother came over, and we all carved pumpkins and I made some stew. It isn't really dark here until about 6:30 or 7:00, so we went out after dinner and got loads and loads of candy! The kids asked about their friends, but we still had a great time. I loved that my grandmother got to tag along with us. I hope my kids remember that for the rest of their lives.

Last weekend, my friend Heidi and her husband, Rich, invited the kids and I to join them for tidepooling at Leo Carrillo Beach, just north of Malibu. It was so much fun, and I hadn't done that since I was a teenager. We saw sea anemones, hermit crabs, starfish, and (gasp!) we all got to hold an octopus! You know, I have heard that sea anemones sting, but one of the best things about tidepooling when I was a kid was to touch a sea anemone and watch it curl up. I used to put seashells in the center of the anemones to watch them grab them, presumably to devour them. But then a minute or two later, you watch them spit the shells out. So, I tentatively touched one this time, and lo and behold they still don't sting! So I taught my kids how to touch them so they could have the experience of watching them curl up, too. Now, I would say that 10% of the time, the kids explored the tidepools, and 90% of the time they played Star Wars with Jacob and Connor on the beach, but I loved being there to watch them explore the rocky shore for the first time.

So what's the deal? Does anyone know why everyone says sea anemones sting? Is it just certain kinds? Have I just been lucky?

We had rain yesterday. The first significant rain since we've lived here. There were times it just came down in sheets, so fast that the parched ground could barely absorb it. It just makes me wonder, how does this dry land support so many people? And many days, you can see the air pollution, even in Camarillo, near the ocean. It seems that this land is stretched beyond what it can support here. And then it rains, and it cleans the air and washes the dust off of all the plants and makes the hillsides green, and you see what attracted people here in the first place. It can also be impossibly beautiful.

Look for kale and cabbage in the markets soon, it's planted everywhere here right now. First it was strawberries. Then cilantro, parsley, and onions. Now kale and cabbage. And all the citrus trees are loaded with green fruit. You can tell what's in season here by smelling the air. Recently, everywhere we went, you could smell cilantro. And in the fields, migrant workers were picking cilantro in perfect, grocery store bunches and plopping them into some big, bundling machine pulled by a tractor that gobbles them up and, I guess, stores them inside, in bundles, somewhere. I've never lived so close to so much agribusiness, and then small family farms tucked in between here and there. Farming is hard work.

I'm in the middle of Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri. Wow. What a poignant writer. I gain so much insight to the human psyche from reading her stories.

More soon. . .

True Confessions

Okay, I have to come clean. I am shamelessly in love with Disneyland. I took Lauren out of school on Friday to take my kids to Disneyland. As a teacher, I had conflicted feelings about this, but I had to weigh my options. I decided it was okay to take Lauren out of 3 hours of kindergarten to go to Disneyland with her Grandma Linda while she was visiting. The kids had Thursday off from school for Yom Kippur, but not Friday. So on Thursday afternoon, we headed down to Anaheim for our big trip.

Rick has oodles of hotel points, so my mom and I took the kids on Thursday afternoon to the Doubletree Hotel in Anaheim. Thursday night we played in the pool, and then we hung out and had dinner at Downtown Disney. We ate at the Rainforest Café, and spent a good hour plus browsing at the biggest Disney Store in the world. My kids are basically spoiled, so we bought them Ariel and Pirates of the Caribbean t-shirts to wear at Disneyland the next day.

When we pulled into the hotel parking lot Thursday evening, my mom took the kids into the lobby while I called Lauren’s school to lie about her being ill on Friday. I feel guilty about this. Can you tell?

My guilt, though, is outweighed by my love for Disneyland. I have such fond memories of it from when I was little. We’d go once a year or so and my parents always bought us a Mickey Mouse balloon at the end of the day. I looked forward to picking out that balloon the whole time I was there. And does anybody remember being so excited about something when you were little that you literally jumped up and down thinking about it? That was how I felt when we were going to Disneyland. My heart would jump seeing a giant Mickey Mouse walking down Main Street, and I’d rush up to give him a hug or shake his hand. It’s so cliché, but for me when I was a kid, Disneyland was magical.

So bringing my own kids to the happiest place on Earth is something that thrills me. I’ve shown them all the movies, we sing the songs, we wear the t-shirts. I don’t care that it’s all unabashedly commercial or too crowded or way overpriced. Seeing my kids marvel and wave at a giant-sized Winnie the Pooh or duck behind me because they’re scared of Captain Hook makes me the happiest clam on the reef (do you get my lame Nemo reference there?).

Ryan’s favorite part of the day - riding on Big Thunder Mountain and the Matterhorn. He loved that they were fast, but he really loved that he went on rides that Lauren was too scared to go on. As the younger sib, he doesn’t have much to hold over his sister, but now he tells everyone that he wasn’t scared to go on the roller coasters at Disneyland.

Lauren’s favorite part of the day - the Princess Fantasy Faire. The princesses were there telling stories and teaching the kids to do dance steps and curtseys and other royal whatnot. Ryan was picked out of the crowd and was supposed to be the prince in a story told to the audience by Sleeping Beauty. At the last second, he chickened out and hid under a chair on the side of the stage. But Lauren was there with him, on the side of the stage, trying to coax him out to take part in the story. The whole experience of meeting the princesses and dancing with them and making crowns with them, well, it just left Lauren giddy.

Three more little stories of the day (not in chronological order), and I’m done:

I was sitting next to Ryan on the tram taking us to the entrance to the park. We went by some statues of Mickey and Minnie Mouse dressed in Halloween costumes and surrounded by pumpkins. Ryan turns to me and said, “This really is the happiest place on um, er, the happiest place on um . . . Mom, I’m just super duper happy!”

We were taking the three-minute ride raft over to Tom Sawyer’s Island, and Lauren and Ryan made fast friends with David, a 5-year old from Monterey. They decided that they were all going to hang out together and be friends on the island. So after running through caves, climbing up in the treehouse, and pillaging and plundering the island, I hear David say to his mom, “I finally know who I’m going to marry. Her!” And he points to Lauren.

The night before we went to the park, Lauren and I were sitting in the Rainforest Café. Up on the ceiling there were faux shooting stars going across the sky. I said to Lauren, “You know, you’ve never seen a real shooting star before, but you will someday. And when you do, it will be special. They happen so fast and they’re so beautiful and rare. They’re amazing!” She nodded at me. I continued, “The next time I see one, I promise I’ll think about you and how much I love you, okay?” She said back to me, “And when I see one, Mom, I’ll think about you and Disneyland and how much I love that you brought me here.” Wow, talk about magical! My heart still melts when I think about it.

I looooove Disneyland.

Hangin' Out in Paradise

The kids and I had a great day today hanging out in Santa Barbara. We saw a skeleton of a blue whale, went to the Ty Warner Sea Center, and played at Alameda Park.

Lauren's observation of the whale skeleton, "The flipper bones look like hands!" They did, too.

Ryan's observation of the skateboard park, "Mommy, they don't have helmets on!" Good boy.

Riley Edward Lightbourne Has Arrived!

On Sunday night, September 21, I got the call that my new nephew was born at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena. He’s 7 pounds, 8 ½ ounces, and 19 ¾ inches long. I went to see him today, and he’s absolutely beautiful. Perfect little newborn toes, tiny little newborn nose, and sleepy little newborn yawns and gurgles.

Needless to say, Steve and Christine are tired but happy. Christine was in labor for a whopping 18 hours! Our family is thrilled.

Adjustment Pains and Relief

This summer, I was worried about Ryan. We had huge upheaval in our lives, and Ryan was a mirror for our family’s pain. Stubborn, ill-tempered, reckless, and sad. I kept telling people, “Ryan’s giving me a heck of a time lately!” Going to the park would lead to tantrums about sunscreen application. He’d try to break Lauren’s music box or throw her dolls out the window. I’d find him standing, balanced on the back of the family couch, and I’d take him down, saying, “We sit on our couch.” Only to find him two minutes later in exactly the same spot. When we’d leave our nightly visits to the Hutton playground, he’d lay on the grass and cry because we couldn’t play longer. And at bedtime, he’d sob about never seeing his friends again because we were leaving. I didn’t know how to help him other than to hug him and let him know I was there for him. I ached for him, but he frustrated me, too.

We’d have our quiet, happy moments, reading books and playing with friends, but overall, I remember a tough summer with my boy.

All of this was made tougher by not having a schedule to anchor us. I couldn’t say, “Today we’re going to co-op, and tomorrow we have swim lessons,” because we had nothing like that. It was more like, “Daddy and I have to work on the house, and you’ll be spending a few days with Grandma and Poppa.” He’d ask me, “How many sleeps will we be there?” and I could only reply, “I don’t know,” because I didn’t know. And then when we were home together, we could get a call from a realtor, and any activity we’d be doing would be dropped so Mommy could clean the house. My kids spent a lot of time in front of the TV, I’m sorry to say.

Shortly after we arrived in Camarillo, we had a long talk about how he never wanted to move again, because when we move, we spend a lot of time in the car and that just makes him so tired! He doesn’t like sleeping so much so can we please not move again?

We still have our moments. Last night, after reading A Fruit is a Suitcase for Seeds before bed, Ryan began to cry because he never got to see his eggplant(?) in our garden produce a vegetable. Why he was into that eggplant, I don’t know, but last spring, he wanted to grow an eggplant.

Ryan wears his pain on his sleeve. It’s so present, and it comes up so readily. He’s not like Rick or I, who have managed to stuff our grief away somewhere and focus on what needs to get done, the future for our family, and oh boy, haven’t we moved to a great place?

Anyway, I write about all this with Ryan because I was worried about him (and me too, I think). But now, things actually seem to be getting a little better, and I feel Ryan’s weight beginning to lift from my shoulders. We started a co-op here, and we seem to have found that anchor, that stability that I hoped would bring back some of my happy, free-wheeling boy.

Teacher Annie is Ryan’s new preschool teacher, and she’s wonderful with the kids (just like Teacher Gail!). The learning is play-centered, the discipline is about teaching, and there are lots of songs and snack, and well, I just couldn’t be happier with the program. He also dictates stories to his teacher a couple times a week and she writes them down and has him illustrate them. It’s priceless. My favorite so far was his story written about his picture of planet Earth (he covered it with bug stickers):

“The bugs are living on the mountaintops. That’s where you find lots and lots of
bugs. Well, some people go camping in the mountains.”

And friends! Ryan is making new friends! He talks all the time about Cole and Jacob, his new best buddies. They build train tracks together, play in the playhouse together, and ride trikes outside together. We even got to go to Jacob’s house one morning and play with Geo Tracks—very cool.

We’ll still have our irrational moments (I mean, he just turned 4 for Pete’s sake!), and I’m sure we’ll still have our episodes of grief at what we’ve left behind. But for now, I’m noticing a kid who’s calming down and getting happier.

I am breathing a huge sigh of relief.

Stool Watch Update

Still no sign of the quarter. However, one movement got away from me as it happened on a plane (!), and Ryan was so fascinated with the way an airplane toilet flushes (the power!) that he flushed it before I had a chance to inspect things.

He is acting like his usual, energetic self, so I'm not worried.

Today is Ryan's 4th birthday. His birthday dinner request--salmon, rice-a-roni, and apples. Oh, and brownies for dessert.

We go to the doctor on Friday.

Stool Watch 2008

Last night, while cleaning up dinner dishes and talking to my mother on the phone, Ryan came up to me with a panicked look in his red-rimmed, tear-filled eyes. “Mommy, I need to go to the doctor!” and he doubled over and started hacking and coughing, as if he was trying to vomit. “Trying” is the operative word here. He didn’t seem like he was sick, it was like he was trying to force himself to throw up.
“What are you doing?” I asked, and not too calmly, either.
“I swallowed money, Mom, I’m really, really sorry!” he replied.
“You swallowed money? What kind?”
“A coin.”
“Didn’t Daddy just talk to you about putting money in your mouth last night?” I asked him, annoyed at my own shrill tone. I had visions of just the night before, Rick getting down to Ryan’s level, holding his shoulders, and telling Ryan that we don’t put money in our mouths because it’s really dirty and you can choke on it and blah, blah, blah.
I’m sure by now, everyone is already impressed with my parenting skills. Getting shrill with my panicked child? Bringing up the lecture from the night before? Eeegad. I was one of those “What Not to Do” parenting videos. Call in The Nanny.
I got off the phone with my mom and vaguely remembered two quarters sitting on the counter for Lauren’s milk money. They were gone. I took a couple of deep breaths and asked, “Ryan, do you know what kind of coin you swallowed?” knowing full well that he has no idea of the differences between coins. I sat down with him and got my purse. I got out all the different coins. “Was it a dime?” I asked.
“No, not that one,” he said.
“What about this one?” I asked, holding up a penny.
“No, it was silver.”
Okay, at this point I was remembering my mother-in-law’s story about Rick’s sister, Linda, swallowing a nickel, and it got stuck in some pipe and it was a huge pain to get out. Emergency room visit and everything.
“Was it this one?” I asked nervously, holding up a nickel.
“No, Mom, not that one,” he replied, “Mine had a cactus on it.”
“A cactus?” I asked, puzzled, thanking my lucky stars that he did not swallow a nickel.
“What about this one?” I pointed at a quarter.
“No, Mom, I said it had a cactus on it.” He’s annoyed at me this time.
At this point, I’m just grateful that it wasn’t a quarter because they are soooo big! But then I had a dreadful thought. I got on to Wikipedia and typed in “50 states quarters.” All the quarters' designs popped up, and right in the top row were all the “A” states. Right away, Ryan got excited and said, “There it is, Mommy! You found it! Yay! That’s the one I ate!” He was pointing at the Arizona quarter.
Now, when I was a ten-year old, I accidentally swallowed a penny. No harm done. But this is a three-year old and a quarter. Aren’t those awfully big for a preschool esophagus? I mean, our esophagus has the same diameter as our index fingers! I didn’t know what to do. We haven’t been to a doctor here. I don’t even know the name of the hospital. Plus, it’s nighttime. In 10 more minutes, I was going to get them ready for bed!
I called the emergency room and asked to speak to a nurse. She told me we should do an x-ray, but it could wait until the morning. At this point, Ryan is running around the house chasing Lauren and laughing and screaming. He was not acting like a child that needed an x-ray. I kept asking him, “Ryan, where do you feel the coin? Do you feel it in your neck? Do you feel it in your chest?” He kept replying, “I don’t feel it anymore, Mom,” or, “I think it’s down to my feet now, Mom.”
Anyway, this morning, I spoke to the doctor that Ryan is going to be seeing for the first time next week, for his 4-year old annual appointment. He told me that 99% of the time, these things pass through the system (he even told me he once had a kid who swallowed an open safety pin, and it passed!). But for now, Rick and I are on “stool watch.” We have to inspect every bowel movement for this quarter. If we don’t find it in the next few days, he needs an x-ray to see where it is. I guess the 1% who don’t have a quarter pass through the digestive tract get it stuck in the small intestine somewhere. Yikes!
We have our latex gloves ready.

Top 10 Things I Love about Camarillo

To combat homesickness, I've created this list of things that are great about my new town:

1. The weather – I think the hottest it’s been here since we’ve arrived is 85 degrees. Usually, it’s around 78. You get cool morning fog from the ocean, it burns off about 10:00, and in the afternoon, when it starts to get hot, the ocean breezes kick in and cool things off. I’ve never been in better weather than this. We’ve eaten dinner in our house (as opposed to the patio) twice since we’ve lived here.

2. The beach – we’ve been to the beach 3 times since we’ve moved here. The first time, Ryan ran to the water yelling, “Cowabunga, dude!” (Where did he get that?). We’ve seen flocks of pelicans, dug up sand crabs, pretended we’re sea monsters (drape seaweed over yourself and you get the idea), and gotten knocked over a few times by the waves. Once, while we were building a sand castle, we spotted a pod of dolphins swimming out in the water. Beautiful.

3. The public library – a café? A bookstore? A beautiful, Spanish-style building complete with fountains, decorative tiles, and palms in the entry? Leather chairs? Tall windows with seats for reading? A pirate ship in the children’s section complete with a mast and sails? Murals from classic children’s books on the walls (Dr. Doolittle, Swiss Family Robinson, Heidi)? Self-checkout? Need I say more?

4. The hot tub – went in tonight. I can’t believe we went so long without having one.

5. The farmers’ market – It’s huge. Plus, here in CA, it seems like everything grows all the time. Some are selling asparagus and artichokes. Others tomatoes and corn. It’s almost like the seasons have no meaning here. I tried to find, and couldn’t, oregano and fava beans. I guess it’s not that perfect. But still, how do they do it?

6. Old Town Camarillo – quaint, charming, old Spanish-style with little statues everywhere. Look there’s a cowboy! Look there’s a farmer! Good restaurants, too.

7. Mexican food – It’s kind of like what I grew up with in LA. Great chips, great margaritas. I had forgotten how good it was. When I eat it, I’m reminded that my first year in Spokane I was craving tortilla chips. Yolanda’s tortilla chips.

8. Listening to my kids attempt to speak Spanish in the park – so lot’s of kids and families here speak Spanish. My kids have watched Diego and Dora. They are so desperate for friends that language barriers are not enough of an obstacle for them. Lauren will say things like, “Hola, vamonos!” or, “Tango sink-o ahn-yos, how old are you?” Even in Spanish, she has to establish the age-related pecking order. A funny exchange between Ryan and a boy last week:
Ryan: “Hey, what’s your name?”
The boy: “Nino, mira, mira!” (the boy is doing his best jump off the play structure).
Ryan: “Hey, what’s your name?”
The boy: “Hey nino, hey nino.”
Ryan: “Hey, what’s your name? Mom! He won’t talk to me!”
The boy: “Nino, mira, mira!”
The boy’s dad and I were laughing.

9. The LA Times - What a great paper. I had forgotten how good it was. I remember when I first moved to Berkeley at the tender young age of 18, I was looking at the San Francisco Chronicle and thought, "That's it?!" But I was used to the LA Times. Over time, I grew to love the Chronicle, and I had my favorite columnists and favorite sections and well, it was my local paper. Then I moved to Spokane, and I read the Spokesman-Review, and I thought, "Ooooh, this is a small town." But I grew to love that paper, too. I still miss Paul Turner. But oh man, The LA Times is awesome. Book reviews every day, world news every day, everything every day. It reminds me of when I was young and had dreams of being a journalist. It was because the LA Times was the local paper in our home day in and day out.

10. The Outlet Mall - Okay, Camarillo has the biggest outlet mall I've ever seen. It has everything. I got my kids Stride Rite shoes for $19.99. It's not E-Bay or Craig's List, I know, but when you can buy the same shoes, brand-new, that you bought in Spokane for (gasp) $46, it's pretty incredible. Almost every store you can think of is there. Unfortunately, I've only shopped for my kids there so far, but a trip for me is not far off! Eddie Bauer and the Gap, here I come!

(11. Mrs. Vesey & Teacher Annie)

The First Day of Kindergarten

There are so many emotions leading up to this day. I’m so proud that my Lauren is starting her first day of kindergarten. She is so ready, so bright, so gregarious, so friendly. I just know she’s going to love it. She’s ready to fall in love with her teacher, and ready to read. As a parent, you don’t mention it out loud that often, but you are just so in love with your children. She was perfect on her first day: she got a good night’s sleep, Grandma Joanne ironed her favorite horse dress so it was crisp, she picked her perfect headband, and we headed out with her brand-new rainbow owl backpack.
Her gait was nervous. “What if there aren’t any girls in my class?” she asked me. Her shoulders were hunched, and she walked tentatively into class. But thankfully, her teacher, Mrs. Vesey, is an old pro—warm, firm, clear in her directions—you know she means business, but is reasonable and kind. Within 15 minutes, Lauren was kissing my hand goodbye (her teacher read The Kissing Hand to start class), and the kindergartners were off.
So, there are a lot of emotions leading up to this day, right? Intermingled with pride, I have so much disappointment that we are in a new place, in a school we don’t know, with parents to whom I have no connection. There is no comfort for me here. This is not what I had planned.
On the first day, I am the only parent waiting outside the class without a big bag of supplies. Lauren doesn’t notice this, but I do. First thing I’m asked by Mrs. Hansen (teacher’s helper) when I walk in is, “Where are your supplies?”
“What supplies? She has a pencils,” I explain, worried I’ve done something wrong.
“The supplies from the list we sent in the summer.”
“Oh, I didn’t know about that list. We just moved here. We’re new.”
“Well, did you bring a lunch?”
“Were we supposed to bring a lunch?”
“That’s right, there were three of you. Hold on. Oh, are you planning on staying for the kindergarten orientation?”
“There’s an orientation? Right now? Um, of course I can stay.”
Now this exchange was perfectly cordial and professional, but I have to admit, it made my anxiety hit the roof. I knew she was in PM Kindergarten, but they’re supposed to bring a lunch? Shouldn’t someone have told me this? Is my daughter going to be the only one on the first day without a lunch or supplies? This is when, of course, Ryan decides he’s going to act up. My mind is racing and frantic, and Ryan decides he’s going to lay on the floor in front of the class and run in a circle on the floor (think The Three Stooges). Thank goodness kindergartners are clueless and none of them notice (but their parents did, I’m sure). I’m about to ask my mother-in-law to take him out of the room and I look back and I notice Rick walking in. He made it after all! I let out a huge sigh of relief and ask him to wave to Lauren and take Ryan home. He must have noticed my crazed eyes and just said, “Okay, Ryan, let’s go!” Among times that I’ve been grateful for my husband, this ranks among the top 3.
When I got home, I took a nap.
Well, this was a week ago Wednesday (8/27), and Lauren now has a bag of supplies, she turns in her homework, and she brings a lunch to school every day. Oh, and she loves kindergarten and her teacher.