Chance Encounter

The family came to Baltimore to visit this weekend, so we spent our time enjoying the Inner Harbor. Technically, though, it is more accurate to say that we spent the past two days enjoying the Maryland Science Center. I seem to recall that this happened the last time we spent more than one day in Baltimore. We presented JR with lots of options; he wanted to go to the Science Center. The next day, we presented JR with all the same options, minus the Science Center. His face crumples, tears start flowing. We end up back at the Science Center.

Today, though, while there we ran into the mother and grandmother of one of the little girls in JR's kindergarten class. She told us that H was upstairs in the Kids Room with her little sister and dad. JR's eyes light up. "Come on, Dad. Come on, Mom. Let's go to the Kids Room." We enter. H and her little sister are immediately spotted. JR looks, turns, and finds somewhere else to play. H sees us. "Hi, H," we say. "Look, JR is here." She looks, their eyes meet, they mutually decide that the encounter is out of context, and proceed to ignore each other for the rest of the visit.

The parents chatted, and since H's parents are native Baltimoreans, we pressed them for some dining options.

JR's dad is now counting this trip as a major success because, unlike his son, he loves to be recognized in out of the way places. While Baltimore doesn't top being recognized in Chicago, or in the Rome airport, it still counts.

New Student

I"m getting back in touch with the range of emotions JR must have felt last September when he started kindergarten. I feel like I've started a new school. New (wonderful, BTW) teachers. Every day new and exciting things to learn. New friends.

There have also been passing moments of desperately missing my old friends. (I had this moment yesterday, standing in line at the deli across the street from the new office building, waiting for my sandwich, where I felt this sharp, stabbing absence of one of my old lunch buddies. When I emailed him later, he reminded me that we'd been lunch buddies for 17 years. We knew each other's routines, we could order for each other.)

There are also the new routines at home. Mastering the new commute. Getting organized the night before with items necessary for the new book bag. New school supplies.

Mostly, it's exciting and invigorating. I leave work every day with my brain feeling like it has been stretched in an entirely different direction. It's akin to the "burn" you feel after working out (okay, okay, the "burn" that I've heard that some people feel when they work out). :)

Life is new.

(On the homefront - last night we had a discussion about mating for life and swans. At camp, they took a trip to a state park with a lake and JR reported that they saw swans. First he described them as "neese" which he eventually acknowledged to be geese, but then he corrected himself. He said the birds were big and white and they saw one (which he described as "totally unexpected") and then were even more surprised when there turned out to be two. So we discussed mommy and daddy swans and how they are usually seen in pairs.)

Kindergarten Electioneering

Election Day has always gotten maximum attention in our house, given that JR's dad is the consummate political junkie. So we discuss everything from the tiniest local election to the big, media-saturated ones. This year, we've had the extra excitement of living in a state where our primary actually mattered (usually, the playoffs are over and the finalist has been chosen before we get around to voting). Add that to the retirement (under shadow of indictment) of one of our all-time favorite criminals, make that state senators, and we couldn't wait to get to the polls this morning.

Of course, all of this has rubbed off on JR, and he's been quite interested in the question of who we were voting for. He had his own favorite, too, and I'm posting because I found his logic fascinating. JR prefers Hillary Clinton because "We've never had a girl president." I tried to explain that we've also never had an African-American president, but the issue of race makes no sense to JR. He doesn't see it. I explained that Obama was "black" and JR told me that no one has black skin. I then compared Obama to
his African-American classmates and he didn't see the comparison because each person has a different kind of skin. He did concede that Obama has hair like his friend who is of mixed race. But basically he couldn't imagine that it would be important to have a president with a certain kind of hair.

I love the fact that he lives in a world where the idea of "race" is incomprehensible and where he cannot understand how anyone could be treated differently because of the color of their skin or the type of hair they have. I hope and pray that he lives in that world for many, many years to come.

On the other hand, I'm also fascinated that in a world where race is a nonsensical distinction, the difference between boys and girls is still so clear. And secretly proud of the fact that my son wanted to vote for the girl, "because it would be a good change, Mommy."

Kindergarten Romance

For a while, JR has told us that a little girl in his class wants to marry him. E.L., a cute little girl with glasses and an interest in Harry Potter, though, is not the girl who inspires longing in JR. That is AM, whose name is always pronounced in a hushed tone with a sigh at the end. So, on this, the day before Valentine's Day, JR came home and told us that "AM says I'm her boyfriend."
"What about E.L.?" I ask. "I thought she wanted to marry you."
"She does. She told me AM is just being sarcastic."

I'm beginning to like E.L. more and more.

Holiday of Playdates

The past few days have been spent in a whirlwind of playdates and events where JR has found friends of every stripe. It has also been just another reminder of how small our world truly is.

Yesterday, before we managed to get out of our pjs, the family across the street called. They had just returned from visiting grandparents in another state and wanted JR to come over to see their gifts from Santa. We made our way across the street until 11:30, when we had to leave to walk over to the home of one of JR's classmates. His mom had put together an awesome New Year's Eve party for the kindergarten set, complete with a countdown at noon, lots of confetti, poppers, silly string, and noisemakers. While there, we learned that C's across-the-street neighbor is JR's friend T, who used to live around the corner from us, and whose parents are active members of our community garden. We also learned that C is in the same ballet class as our across-the-street neighbor, whose home we had just left.

As we were leaving C's party (with a confetti-filled treat bag and a snow globe with JR's picture inside it), my cell phone rang. JR's preschool friend S, who lives in another neighborhood and now goes to a different school, was heading to our neighborhood playground. Would we like to meet up with them? A few minutes in the playground convinced the moms that we needed to be inside, so we invited S and his mom in. JR and S discovered that when his rocket launcher is filled with confetti before being launched, it makes a REALLY AWESOME mess. And I mean REALLY AWESOME mess.

Five minutes after S left with his mom, my cellphone rings again. N's dad was calling - he was taking N and a soccer ball out to the corner park - did JR want to come along. Of course he did. After a few minutes outside, the parents again decided that we needed to be inside, so we lured the boys into N's house for hot chocolate.

We made our way home around 6:00 to prepare our portion of the annual New Year's dinner being held at our friends home. JR was excited, because his friends E and C would be there. The adults ate antipasto, ravioli with sausage and meatballs, venison sausage, salad, another pasta dish and lovely strawberry shortcake and Italian rum cake while the kids rushed their way through a few ravioli so that they could head upstairs to play and watch Happy Feet.

We were home before midnight, but did hear the cheering outside as 2007 ended and 2008 began.

This morning, we headed to E and C's house for the traditional New Year's brunch before heading out to the parade with E and C - where we ran into our across-the-street neighbors, N and his parents, and JR's old preschool friend L, who now lives in the suburbs but had come into town for the parade.

We ended the day at my friend Paul's annual post-parade party - where we ran into one of JR's school friends.

So will the theme for the New Year be: "It's a Small World" ?

The Buddies

One of the most reassuring part of kindergarten has been how quickly our shy little boy has found a new group of friends to play with at school. We were worried about this, as he only knew one of his new classmates from nursery school and the majority of his kindergarten class had been together in pre-K.
It quickly became clear that he has been embraced by a core group of little boys in his class. They share an interest in paper airplanes, sports and playing "chase the girls" in the playground. JR refers to them collectively as "the buddies."
"Mom, the buddies made a fort in the playground today and no one could find us."
"Mom, the buddies were playing chase the girls and R (boy, not one of the buddies) was on the girls side."
"Mom, H brought in 4 bionicles so that there was one for each of the buddies."
"Mom, I don't want peanut butter in my lunch because some of the buddies are allergic."

Trick or Treat

We had a great Halloween. It has never been my favorite holiday (not
that I disliked it, but it just never ranked with Christmas or Easter
or birthday), but this year's was almost perfect.

JR's school had a costume parade and assembly in the morning, which
Dad attended. I picked JR up early from school and we rushed home
to get some dinner in our bellies before suiting up for trick or
treat. JR was, of course, Harry Potter and the little girl across the street (6)
was Hermione Granger. Trick or treating started promptly at 6:00.
The participating families in the neighborhood had jack-o-lanterns lit
and were sitting on their front stoops with bowls of candy. Harry Potter
and I went out with Hermione, her dad and her little brother (Yoda).
We then picked up another even littler guy who lives on the block (Dash Incredible)
and hit the streets. We covered about 4 blocks adjacent to ours in an
hour. Then we headed home, emptied out the bulging bags of candy,
dropped Dash off with his mom and put Yoda into a stroller, so that we
could walk a few blocks over to a neighboring street that hosts a block
party (families not only hand out candy, but have little activity
stands at their houses with Halloween themed arts and crafts or
games). Harry Potter made a bracelet with colored sand, successfully
guessed which of the three moving cups held the candy, visited with
the Indian in the Tepee, and guessed the number of gumballs in a jar,
but drew the line at bobbing for apples, lest he mess up the painted
scar on his forehead. We connected with a few more friends, oohed and
ahhed over a few more costumes and hightailed it home to drive over to
Aunt J's house, where JR's grandmother was holding down the fort.
By the time we got there, though, JR was no longer Harry Potter, having removed his costume, so Memom did not get to see him dressed up. His older cousins were
also out for the night, so we missed them too. (This annual mandatory
trip to my SIL's is one of my Halloween pet peeves, but the rest of
the day was so fun, I'm letting it go).

My favorite costume (which I heard about but did not see) was dreamed
up by my co-worker's 9-y.o. son. He dressed as "Every Kid's Worst
Nightmare"

*
*
*
*
HOMEWORK!

Co-worker dad said the neighbors loved it.

School Days

JR (and his Dad and I) survived our first day of kindergarten. He is a Hummingfish. The other kindergarteners are Barbaloots.

He had a 1-1/2 hour orientation yesterday, and then the full, first day of school today. Earlier this week, he had a total meltdown about leaving his old preschool. ("I don't want new teachers. I miss K and H.") When we arrived yesterday, he looked a bit shell-shocked. One of his wonderful teachers (R) came up to introduce himself. JR glued himself to my backside. R got down on JR’s level and pulled out a guitar pick. After unsuccessfully trying to engage JR in a conversation about what the guitar pick does, he made it disappear. The guitar pick reappeared behind JR’s ear. R was now okay in JR's book. ☺

Today, he was pretty tentative in the yard at drop-off, which was filled with all the returning kids from pre-K to grade 8. He was especially nervous because his best friend Z wasn’t there. (Z also wasn’t there yesterday because he had a later orientation time.) Nevertheless, he walked upstairs and put his Spiderman book bag in his cubby. He then handed me his striped tiger to take with me (“Put it in your book bag,” I suggested. “Noooo, Mom, you take him. Stripey doesn’t want to go to kindergarten.”). Then he scooted over to the circle and sat down right in the same spot he'd sat in yesterday (next to Teacher R).

Z's mom told me later than when she dropped her son off (3 minutes late), JR's whole face lit up. He jumped up, the 2 of them ran to greet each other, and life was good. Z went to this school last year for pre-K, so he already has a bunch of friends. He promised his mom to introduce JR to his other friends.

At home tonight, the stories about his day tumbled out willy-nilly. Apparently, they learned the song for the weekly field trip to the environmental center, they had an all-school assembly at which all the Hummingfish had to stand up together, and they were presented with their official school t-shirts, and they paired off in twos and threes to share their favorite books which they'd brought from home. (JR brought in Book 1 of Harry Potter, which we've just finished). JR was grouped with Z and a girl whose name he doesn't remember. Another boy is already reading Book 3 of Harry Potter and every time his dad reads the name Voldemort, he screams. The class had a visit from the Lorax, who brought them a gift of seeds, which they planted. The whole school learned that "Every day is Earth Day." The "other J" in first grade, whom we met at church on Sunday, had to stand up when his name was called and he also got a t-shirt (all kids new to the school get t-shirts). And on and on.

After all of the agonizing we went through last year - we couldn't be happier with JR's kindergarten. The only downside - after 4 years of walking from home to preschool to work, we are now taking 2 busses up and back. I left my office at 4:00 p.m. to pick him up and we got home at 6:00 p.m. My resolution to use public transit and not drive may not last very long.

Distracted

I was so caught up this morning in discussing the schools dilemna (Joseph's lottery ticket for the public schools we liked came up short, but he did get into a fabulous private school and there is still the option of the cozy Catholic school and ....) that I dropped JR off at the preschool but carried his lunchbox all the way to my office.

Once I realized I still had his Spiderman lunchbox in my clutches, I called my supervisor to let her know I'd be late, found an ATM so I'd have money to pay the cab which I then hailed, and ran the lunchbox back out to the preschool.

Back at my desk, I opened my calendar to discover that I wasn't supposed to be in the office at all. I had a doctor's appointment scheduled and was now 5 minutes late!

I know I'm obsessing over the whole kindergarten issue - but I hope my scatterbrain morning is not predictive of how my next few months are going to go (until this is all resolved).

It's only kindergarten, right?

Bowling for Kindergartens

After JR's playdate at a potential private kindergarten, he wanted to go bowling. We of course agreed, being the superindulgent parents that we are. I'm still trying to figure out, though, how he knew about bowling in the first place.