This winter seemed particularly lonnnnnnng.
I felt like March was a big tease, as usual. It seemed to taunt us with cold for-ev-er.
But warmer weather is slowly replacing those dog days of frigidity, and my spirit is singing with the birds and blooms that seem to magically appear... and all is right with the world.
...Well aside from psycho abortion doctors, marathon bombings, friends losing cancer battles, and your typical worldly chaos....
Needless to say, a lot of things have grabbed for my attention in the past month or so.
I've thought about posting here and there. But somehow it just doesn't seem to happen. I take almost all of my pictures on my phone now, and I think that definitely has a lot to do with it. It's amazing how technology changes so rapidly-- and thus changes our way of living. Blogging is still something I feel is important, but it's kind of like exercise and eating right. If I'm not intentional about it, it doesn't happen. Ever.
Today I woke up thinking I'd finally get back on the treadmill. I even slept in workout gear. But of course one thing leads to another-- excuses abound until I find myself giving up on the idea for a few more minutes of this or that (read: facebook or a nap). This body ain't gettin any younger.
And neither are these kids.
I registered C for kindergarten at the end of February. I thought I might be a little emotional about it. But I never anticipated how deeply the process would impact me. The day of registration wasn't as hard as it could've been, though I definitely felt the "this is all so huge and new" feelings.
I scheduled us for a tour mid-march, and due to a little snowstorm and a random Toad Adventure (finding a jumbo toad, frozen but alive, on our snowy driveway and of course having to rescue him), we showed up a few minutes late and the principal had started without us. We dropped our thawing toad off in the office (he was in a colander with a lid-- i'm sure they thought we were nuts), and went with the secretary to find the tour-in-progress.
First impressions are pretty important. And the one we got of the principal was what I like to call 'a slap in the heart'. Not only did she not greet us... she barely glanced our way as we joined the 3 other families that were following her around. I felt like we'd just been given an "unexcused tardy" via her body language.
As I tried to catch my breath, I realized we were not in your average elementary school. There were no real classrooms, hallways, doors, or walls. We were standing in a maze of chaos. . . bordered by tall dividers and cubbies, with children of all ages milling around, talking, laughing, reading, etc... blurred by the din of a dozen teacher voices trying to keep their attention.
She called them Pods. She said they were built in the 70s... and as if trying to spin it in a positive light despite her obvious annoyance, she said that with 605 kids, they make the best of it. "It teaches the them to block out background noise...which is an important skill in the real world." Really?? It looked like one big breeding ground for A.D.D.
I suddenly felt hot. Closed in. Lost. Nervous. Being herded like cattle through the maze of open yet claustrophobic cacophony. A lump formed in my throat, as I tried to take it all in. At the same time, I was trying read C's expression, which resembled a deer in headlights. .. I was also trying to take time to lean down and talk to him...explain what we were seeing (since the principal wasn't talking at all to her future Kindergarteners)... AND simultaneously keep track of K, who thought we were there to touch everything, ask lots of questions, and run around.
The 2 Kindergarten rooms sat back to back, with a divider between them. Fortunately there were actually windows and a door that led to the playground on one side of the rooms. But again, no one greeted us, or said anything welcoming. 25 children sat on each side of the divider, chattering away. It appeared pretty organized for only being run by one teacher per room. But again, I felt like I was going to burst into tears. I swallowed hard, and bent down and whispered something enthusiastic to my almost 5 yr old, who smiled as he looked around. I'm usually pretty good at hiding my emotions, but at this point I was really wondering how I was going to: A.) make it out of here without crying like a baby. And B.) EVER going to be able to send MY baby into such an environment.
Somehow I held it together. The tour ended and the principal slinked back into her office. When we got outside, I knelt down to zip C's jacket and asked him what he thought of it all. His response was simply, "Great!"
And I suppose that should be all that matters, right? That he was blissfully unaware of the chaos and coldness. He'll probably do great, and have a blast, and never know the difference.
But I will. And thus I sobbed on and off for the rest of the day, clueless as to why I couldn't think about the whole thing without breaking down.
The toad thawed out by afternoon, and was trying to escape the walls of his wooden palace. I got some great, regal looking shots of him. But started to feel badly for him-- being wakened from his winter slumber a few days too soon, as unnaturally as possible-- taken captive and held against his will. It was "T" week at preschool and C was determined to bring him in the next day for "show and tell". I really wanted him to have that thrill, but by the end of the day it was obvious that Mr. Toad was ready to return to the wild. We convinced C that that was best for him, and told him we'd bring the pics to school the next day to show his class. And after a day of what I'm sure was total confusion for the poor creature, "Toady" happily hopped into the hole in the stone wall next to our driveway, right where he belonged.
And just like that, he was gone.
And so it will most likely be with my firstborn. When it's time for him to go, I cannot hold him back.
