September 8

September 8, 2006

The day I have dreaded has arrived. Today Jason starts kindergarten at Lake Wilderness. I am nervous for a lot of reasons – not the least of which is the class size, 21 kids and one teacher and, I suspect, at least some of those kids will be special needs kids. Lake Wilderness is THE special needs school in the area. Moreover, this teacher is relatively new to both teaching kindergarten (1 year experience) and to the school district itself. But we will see. And, of course, Jason is to ride the bus to school…

But, shake that off. I have a few funny ‘don’t you just love five year olds’ stories for you. The first occurred while we were out shopping at a local ‘everything’ (i.e. grocery + department) store. Just as we got into line to pay for the groceries, Jason spotted one of his favorite, now ex, classmates. ‘HI ABBEY!’ he yelled. Abbey’s mother pointed at Jason and said ‘Abbey, say Hi to Jason.’ Abbey did. Then her mother got into the line next to ours and the three children – yes, three. You didn’t think Xander could be left out, did you? – began chatting. At one point, apparently, they were discussing setting up a play date and my ever so precious five year old said, solemnly, ‘Yeah, but probably not at my house. It’s a mess!’ Sigh.

Then there was the discussion that Jason and Xander were having in the back of the car the other day. Or rather, Jason was laying out a plan of future attack and Xander was chirping agreement. It went something like this ‘And then you will do this and I will do this and then we will rule the world. Only, we don’t want to rule the world, that’d be too much work, so we will just fix it.’ Xander listened to this philosophical commentary and said ‘Pease give me dat, bah bah?’ Turned out that Jason had a deflating yellow balloon that Xander considered his own. Jason tossed it to him and continued on with his contemplations about life, the universe, and everything. Tom, who was driving, rolled his eyes at me. I just shrugged. What can you do?

Finally, yesterday was ‘orientation.’ Parents and children went to the classroom to meet the teacher and hear something about the way things are going to work. (Turns out that the class numbers are so large that they ended up splitting the orientation session into two separate groups!) While the parents were ‘oriented’ the kids were taken out to the playground. At the end of the session the kids came back – straggled back might be a better description. Some showed up to the front door, some to the back door and my son was no where to be seen. ‘Where is my son?’ I asked the monitor. ‘He probably went with the other class.’ She said resignedly, ‘I’ll go find him.’ And around the corner comes Jason at a run. I took one look at him and said ‘Do you need to use the potty?’ ‘Yes’ he gasped out, his face an alarming shade of red. Off we went. Once his immediate needs had been handled, I asked ‘Why didn’t you tell someone that you needed to use the potty?’ ‘I didn’t know who to ask.’ He replied sensibly. I said ‘Well, in the future you can ask one of the folks in the orange vests or you can ask your teacher.’ ‘What if my teacher is talking to someone else?’ he inquired, his brow wrinkled with concern. ‘Why don’t you ask her?’ I suggested. ‘Okay’ So he marched over to the teacher. She was, in fact, in the middle of talking with someone else but when she had a moment, I said ‘Jason has a question.’ ‘Yes’ she inquired, looking at him expectantly. He asked his question and she nodded. ‘We will be learning sign language.’ She said ‘If you need to use the potty, you make this sign and I will tell you that you can go with this sign.’ I held my tongue but it occurred to me that whether one was using sign or speech, in order for a need or concern to be communicated, both people need to be aware of each other. If the teacher is, in fact, concentrating on what another person is saying, how likely is it that she will be looking up and able to see a ‘sign’? Ah well. Time will tell. I did explain to her that when Jason says he needs to go, he NEEDS to go. It isn’t a ‘wait until it is convenient’ sort of situation. Hopefully she will keep that in mind. Just in case, I am sending a change of clothes.

As for Xander, he continues to be amazing. Yesterday, when we were outside, he announced to me that he was a ‘baby spiderweb’ and I was a ‘mommy spiderweb’ and I, the mommy spiderweb was to push the baby spider web in swing. I am an obedient mommy, in whatever incarnation, so I obeyed. What else was I to do? I have learned, from watching interactions between Jason and Xander, that arguing personalities with Xander doesn’t work… The other day, Xander told Jason ‘No’ over some subject and Jason was just devastated. I asked him what was wrong and he said, tears in his voice, that he had wanted to do such and such and Xander had said ‘No!’ Tom looked at me in exasperation and asked plaintively, ‘He isn’t bothered when we say ‘no’ – he hardly even acknowledges it but when his brother tells him ‘no’ it is a major catastrophe?’ I explained that Xander had the authority of absolute conviction on his side….