kindergarten

Ryan starts all day kindergarten on Monday.

Last week we went to Kohl’s and he got to pick out his first book bag. It’s Spiderman, and it comes with a mini-skateboard that attaches itself with a strap to the front. He thinks it’s very cool. At first he was leaning towards the “Buzz Lightyear” one but it had wheels and that wasn’t allowed. He is keeping his Buzz Lightyear lunchbox from preschool last year. He is such a picky eater I don’t know if he’s going to be eating in the cafeteria this year. They offer free breakfast at his school and they bring it to his classroom in a crate….juice, milk, and a muffin or whatever. They can eat one or all of the selection. Hopefully if he sits down and sees the other kids eating he might try some new things too. But lunch, I don’t know. He’s pretty particular. He has invented his own “sign language” of sorts for different things. Milk in ASL is taking the left hand, making a fist, and squeezing it….like milking a cow. So, since Ryan always wants chocolate milk, he created a new sign. It starts out the same, with the left fist squeezing, but then he added a right fist squeezing over the top of the left fist (to represent the bottle of chocolate syrup being squeezed into his sippy cup). Of course to our family this has become common knowledge, but Erik the other day said, “I wonder how the lunch lady is going to react the first day Ryan walks up to her and uses his hands to ask for chocolate milk?!?!?!?!?!”

His teacher’s name is Ms. Dahlke. She seems very nice. 13 years experience. Very pretty, probably a size 2 after a HUGE meal. She has some erotic Asian features, dark thick black hair, a “cute” personality that I am sure lures 5 and 6 year old boys into adoring her. It makes me sad. I don’t want him to give HER a marry ring too! It took a lot of time for me to adjust to sharing my proposal with Nana. I know, it’s pathetic; I treat this teacher like the “other” woman. But she is! I don’t want to share Ryan! She’s taking my baby away. She is going to be spending more time with him than me. She is going to teach him to read, so he won’t need me to tell him the directions on his play station games or read his birthday cards to him anymore. He’s already taking showers! Well, not your typical showers. He still sits down in that bathtub and plays with toys; he just does it under a raining shower head instead of sitting in a bath. He doesn’t need “mom” to wash his hair anymore. He can make a hotdog by himself in the microwave. He’s stopped playing with “piggies” as much…..he’s just growing up before my eyes and it makes me sad. As soon as he learns to make chocolate milk by himself and do his laundry he will have no use for me anymore L He’ll have jokes that I don’t understand. He will have friends that I’ve never met. He’ll learn words that I haven’t taught him (some good/some bad). He’ll have a whole myriad of experiences that will help to mold and shape him into the person he’s going to become, and my influence will become only one of many.

Tonight I have to plug in my camera and download all my pictures so that I will have room to take all the pictures I need for posterity’s sake on Monday. Pictures of him in front of the school sign, with his beautiful teacher. I don’t remember this being so difficult with Chelsea. Probably because she came out of the womb so independent. I wonder if it is going to be so difficult with the twins. I way over bought clothes for Ryan, but I want him to be cool. I want everyone to like him. I want him to enjoy school……….I will just miss him. Oh my god, I am already crying like a baby and it’s not for 3 more “sleeps.” (Sleeps= nights before something). I remember talking to mothers and thinking how embarrassing and upsurd it was for them to cry when their kids start school. What’s the big deal? Now I know. After Monday I will have to start preparing myself for the first “sleepover” I imagine. It’s good for me to write all of this down though, in 9 years when he’s 15, starting his freshman year I will be obsessing about the drama of puberty and a driver’s permit…..and these thoughts will all be a memory.

The girls are very upset that they aren’t starting school. Well, more Bekah than Livy. She walks around talking all the time about her “cool” (school). She said that she needs a “pack pack” (backpack). She called nana the other day and told her that she needed to find her “flippers” (ballet slippers) because she would need them on her first day. I went ahead and bought both her and Livy folders with kittens on them to bring to Nana’s house and told her that Papa would be her teacher. She’s started calling him “Mr. Papa. “ I don’t know if she’s going to buy it, but it’s distracted her a bit. Maybe I can print them out some color sheets with different letters and colors to keep in their folders.

Chelsea is ready for school too. I found a lot of bras on clearance at JcPenney’s the other day, so that was great. She still needs some underwear I imagine, but other than that I think she has enough to get started. I don’t remember my mom ever buying me bras. I guess she probably had too, but I don’t remember it. I had two older sisters so maybe I just got hand me downs. I know for a fact I didn’t get a special shopping trip every fall just for “school clothes.” I got $100 for my birthday in September and she let me use that towards school clothes. I guess that made me lucky, because my little sister’s birthday was in March. I was always so jealous of those kids whose first 2 weeks was a fashion show. Walking in on their first day with new backpacks, pencils with no teeth marks, flawless pink pearl erasers. Their confidence and excitement radiated so much it almost distracted from their blinding white shoes. I remember one year being sent to school with just a pencil…..my mom said I wouldn’t need anymore than that the first day. I am sure I probably got more supplies later, after the next payday, but the first day a pencil was all I had. She was probably right. We probably didn’t reach into our desks for anything else that first day; or if we did I just borrowed from my friend, but I never forgot that. Maybe that’s why I am so zealous about school supplies. I have a whole tote of extras. I buy for my little sister’s daughters. Whenever there is a sale for 5 cents, or 15 cents, I grab whatever the limit is….crayons, paper, pencils, pens, rulers, hole punchers…..whatever. Sort it out later. Don’t get me wrong, I am not upset with my parents or feeling sorry for myself. It just was what it was. I think I of course have a much better understanding of poverty now that I have 4 children myself. Enough of an understanding to know how lucky WE were as kids, and how lucky I am now. Heck, the school fees alone here in the State of Indiana are horrible. Chelsea and Ryan’s were a hundred dollars each before they walked in the door….and if Chelsea still wants to be in band somehow I have to come up with $125 for her Tuba mouthpiece, music stand, and instruction book. I imagine when Olivia and Rebekah start kindergarten, Ryan starts third grade, and Chelsea starts high school, we will have to take out a small loan! It will be like Christmas in August. And then the winter coats! And Halloween costumes! And Christmas! Anyway, I am sure even with Chelsea’s new shoes, new bras, new t-shirts and capri’s she will still look around and be jealous of the kids with brand name stuff on. It’s just the hierarchy of pre-teen girls.

ryan, dahlke, first day of school, kindergarten, school, money, school supplies, sign language