She had to say it again. Her tone sounded \u2026 well, it sounded like she thought I was an imbecile: \u201cYes! TOMORROW is the last day of kindergarten.\u201d<\/p>\n
OK, I am sort of an imbecile. We men don\u2019t compute things until they\u2019re laid out in front of us with neon and barbecue sauce slathered all over. We should pay better attention. We should listen once in a while, but that requires more brain cells than we have in the bank.
\n
\nAnd on this occasion I wasn\u2019t guilty of not listening. I was guilty of disbelief. (\u201cDisbelief\u201d \u2026 Latin for \u201cdis here belief is totally unbelievable!\u201d)<\/p>\n
How could it be? Kindergarten couldn\u2019t be over and done with! Hadn\u2019t it just started? Like last week?<\/p>\n
The three of us \u2014 mom, dad, daughter (the dog and chickens weren\u2019t invited) \u2014 had walked nervously into the foreign, even alien, cafeteria at Ketterlinus Elementary. It was for kindergarten orientation. It took place on a warm evening last summer. They had a dolphin out front \u2014 their mascot. Long halls looked like they were made for giants. Sinks in the bathroom were high enough that you didn\u2019t have to hunch over. What was this strange place? <\/p>\n
Big kid school!<\/p>\n
We sat at the tables where my daughter would soon eat. We listened to instructions on how to dropoff kids and the importance of remembering to pick them up. I worried my brain cell bank account was too overdrawn for this.<\/p>\n
It was a big step. It is for any family. And yet, somehow, it\u2019s already over.<\/p>\n
The final day of school seemed far off. Nothing worth thinking about. Getting emotional about. First it was months. Then a bushel of weeks. At one point I remember someone saying there were 44 days left. Forty-four days is an eternity.<\/p>\n
So how are we there already? Which is why there had to be some miscalculation. Which is why I had to ask: \u201cWait a minute, tomorrow isn\u2019t the last day of kindergarten is it?\u201d<\/p>\n
Which is why the person who answered had to think I was an imbecile.<\/p>\n
But it doesn\u2019t seem possible. That my little kindergartner is now a \u2026 a \u2026 FIRST GRADER!!!<\/p>\n
And I\u2019m going to miss it now that summer break is upon us. The walks to school. My daughter rides a pink scooter. The rest of her is usually pink. People think they saw a stick of flying bubble gum whizz by them.<\/p>\n
I will miss the artwork she brings home, and the stories she wrote in class. What\u2019s going to fill up every available inch of our house for the coming months?<\/p>\n
I will miss her teachers \u2014 Mrs. O\u2019Connor and Mrs. Power. Don\u2019t let anyone tell you teachers aren\u2019t amazing. Every morning they walk in and turn complete chaos into an instrument of education. It makes splitting the atom look like \u2026 well, child\u2019s play.<\/p>\n
Most of all, I will miss having a kindergartner.<\/p>\n
\u201cNext year you\u2019re going to be one of the big kids on campus,\u201d I told her.<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t like the thought.<\/p>\n
No longer will she be one of the runts, dwarfed by the taller \u201cgraders\u201d who plod about like walking skyscrapers. She\u2019s one of them now. Not the biggest, but no longer the smallest.<\/p>\n
She doesn\u2019t want it to end, either. Can you believe it? A kid who would rather put off summer break? She\u2019d go straight on through if she could. Never graduating to higher grades. Eternally spending her years in the same classroom, cutting out flowers and spelling words like \u201ccat\u201d and \u201croof\u201d while everyone else moves on to middle and high school. <\/p>\n
Wouldn\u2019t we all if we could? I would. Kindergarten was a magical time. Utter innocence without the clutter of the real world. All of that starts to come later. In third grade.<\/p>\n
I sat on a wooden bench in the office one day this week while my wife asked one of her teachers a question. I felt like I was in trouble \u2014 as if I had been sent there for acting out in class. The principal walked by and asked how I was doing. Nervously (instinctively) I responded, \u201cI didn\u2019t do it! It was that kid!\u201d<\/p>\n
But as I sat there, I thought about how months would go by before I was there again. Months before I walked my blinding flash of pink to school again. Months before I have to make another peanut butter sandwich under deadline. Before someone has to yell, \u201cWe have 22 seconds to make lunch, walk the dog, brush teeth, use the bathroom and drive to school. Double time, people!\u201d<\/p>\n
How I will miss it, and all that goes along with the flight of the kindergartner. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
She had to say it again. Her tone sounded \u2026 well, it sounded like she thought I was an imbecile: \u201cYes! TOMORROW is the last day of kindergarten.\u201d OK, I am sort of an imbecile. We men don\u2019t compute things until they\u2019re laid out in front of us with neon and barbecue sauce slathered all over. We should pay better attention. We should listen once in a while, but that requires more brain cells than we have in the bank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[317,8],"tags":[29,392,124,240,23,219],"class_list":["post-853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2012-nutshells","category-parenthoodandchildren","tag-children","tag-first-grade","tag-kids","tag-kindergarten","tag-parenting","tag-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=853"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":854,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853\/revisions\/854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}