Charles started Kindergarten today. It was a bit of a zoo this morning as I dropped him off, and I elected to skip the "Boo Hoo Breakfast" that they hold for Kindergarten parents (it was just coffee and Krispy Kremes anyway, which reminds me: did you know that a single original glazed KK donut has 4 grams of artery-clogging trans fats? 4 grams!? Does the donut even weigh that much? An apple fritter has 7! No wonder Elvis died young.) .
Charles was very excited and never looked back at me this morning. He remembered every detail from the open house last week. When I walked him through the front doors of his school he was pointing out everything to me. "There's the library! There's the cafeteria with the Stone Oak Bobcat painted on the wall! This is the hallway to my classroom!" I asked him which classroom was his and he said, "the one with the fish pattern." I was a little confused until we got there and I realized that the small panel outside the door with the room number had little fish on it.
When we got to his room, the kids were in a circle that didn't quite have any room left in it. When his teacher told him to sit in the circle he kind of looked around and then said to everyone with a smile, "Hey, where can I sit?" I'm glad to see that he's not shy. I'm also pretty confident that he won't be a brat either (at least in comparison to the other kids in there that are clearly the offspring of cavemen).
We will see what effect this all has on Joey. This morning he was parroting to Charles all of the information that we had gone through the night before. He stood there very soberly and said, "Charles, remember, at lunch time you get your lunch from your lunch box. But don't get your snack. At snack time you get your snack out of the front pocket of your backpack." Joey has mostly been quietly observing all the preparations, which isn't his normal approach to life. He never asked about going to school himself. . . until last night when I was putting him to bed and we were talking. I said, "Tomorrow will be a good day, and Charles is going to start Kindergarten." That is when he finally asked (urgently, and on the "K" of "Kindergarten"), "yeah, can I come?" Liz will be working with him a lot one-on-one and we have a handful of day classes at the gym, the zoo, etc., that we will take him to, but he will really miss his brother.
So I sit here and think about my boy. Will he be okay? Will he be afraid? Will he have his feelings hurt? Will he make some good friends? The answer to all of these is probably yes, and I know millions of people go through this every year and we're just one speck in that universe, but it still means a lot to us and we're looking forward to seeing how he takes this next big step in his life.
Here are some pictures of him ready to go this morning:
And a few bonus pics of the boys hamming it up this past weekend in Houston.
As a post-script to this post, I offer an update on the story of Youssif in a previous post. Here is CNN shamelessly patting themselves on the back for the stunning change of course to a story that they originally presented as a bleak and hopeless vignette on how bad we've screwed up Iraq. Their original take on it never accounted for the American spirit and generosity that demanded a way to help. Oh yeah, but the US is the problem in the world today and Americans are selfish and ignorant. Whatever. I think Youssif's family would probably disagree.
Post-post-script - the posted video is the superband ADAM from Provo circa 1995. I'm the one with the blonde wig and the powder blue polyester suit.
8 comments:
Way to go Charles! Lauren is starting pre-school next week, and I have some serious angst about it. She has the attention span of a paperclip, so the teacher will have her work cut out for her.
If you want to impress the teacher, just have Charles recite Luke 2....I'm still amazed by that!
That's awsome that Charles started school today. I love the spikey hair-do. That must have been really hard to leave him. I don't know how I'm going to do that when my time comes. I also really liked your post about Youssif. That's really touching and especially a great thing for Joey to say that. I've never heard or seen any music from your band. Was that when you had a pink guitar? hahaha I didn't know your legs could move that fast even while you're playing the guitar! :p
wow.....first day of school. i always love/hate that day. did you cry, even just a little? if you didn't, your'e not normal.....or you're a dad instead of a mom. he looks and sounds sooooo cute and grown up and so ready for kinde. we are all very excited for him. it is such a fun road to start down, for him and you guys. it will probably be a little hard for joey but also fun for liz to spend some 'different' time with him while charles is away.and then when it's time for charles to come home, to see joey's excitement will be fun (well, at least my kids do that, which is nice to think that they like each other at least a little bit). is he in 1/2 day or full? hopefully full, he's ready and 1/2 day is such a pain. well, tell him we are all very proud of him and want to hear all about it.
Rob - good luck with Lauren. I am still not okay with Charles being in school, but I suppose I'll get used to it. Charles has the same attention span, or at least the tendency to act like he's not really listening. Can you imagine what it would be like teaching Kindergarten? Hope you guys and the baby are well.
Yes Jon, those were the days of the carnation pink stratocaster. That was our ska-core song so I had to skank around during it, right? The singer posted about 6 of our songs on Google video that you can find if you search "ADAM Best Band," but most of them are very poor quality. Still, you can clearly see Holly in a few of them hanging out at our gigs. good times.
Thanks Kris, Charles had a good first day, although his initial feedback was "they threw away my chips and I had too much snack for the time we had." We'll iron out the kinks as we go along I guess. Kindergarten here is 7:45 to 2:45, so a full day. Liz has been having a hard time trying to establish a new schedule with Tori and Joey and their naps and picking up Charles. I'm sure you can relate having coordinated even more moving parts.
Oh my gosh. I already dread the day that Sammie starts Kindergarten and if I think about it long enough I might even get teary. At least once a week she parades around the house with a backpack, telling me that she's getting on the school bus to go to school. Kinda freaks me out. Charles couldn't be cuter. Good luck! I can't wait to hear all about it.
Charles is such a good lookin kid! But mostly, I wanted to say how much I love the red kitchen! :)
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