The Kindergarten Chronicles

Kindergarten has been full of surprises (both good and bad) and lots of new experiences for Sophia. Our inquisitive, confident and active five-year old is exploring a whole new world!

Due to leaving out of town on the second day of school this year (we traveled back to the Midwest for Ryan's wedding to Abby and to baptize Jack Thomas), Sophia missed five days of school. Playing catch-up not only while learning classroom rules and norms; but even as far as going to sleep & getting up in the morning, has been a challenge. (Especially for mama!) Her school day begins at 7:30 a.m. and ends at 2:05 p.m. As a result, she comes home very tired and in the mornings has complained that "school is just too long!"

The other morning, after singing that particular tune, she began to argue her point. "Mom, Miss Sarah's preschool wasn't this long. I don't want to go to kindergarten anymore." True, this past year her preschool schedule was Monday, Wednesday, Friday from 11:30-2 p.m. "Sophia, " I reasoned, "preschool is a practice for real school. Kindergarten is practice for first grade, first grade is practice for second grade and so on." She considered this for a moment, then asked, "Why can't you just home-school me?"

Why indeed. I pondered this for about 2.5 seconds before I replied, "Because mommy is very attached to her sanity." She scrunched up her face in that look and said, "I don't know about your sanity, but that dang school is too long!"

Our Kindergarten Friends
Yesterday, as I walked towards her in Parent Pick-up, I could see that she was upset. The Parent Pick-up is where the children who don't ride the bus are corralled until their moms or dads arrive. The gym is sectioned off with orange cones and by class; guarded by aides who can't let you retrieve your child unless you provide a photo id.

From across the room I could see that she looked unhappy, her usual sunshiney visage was replaced with a very glum look. When our eyes met, she immediately jumped up & burst into sobs. I kneeled down and asked what was wrong. She tried to tell me through her tears, but all I could understand is that a little boy (sitting in time-out next to the aide) was the cause of my little angel's distress. While I tried to calm her down, another little boy approached, sadness and concern etched on his face. With wide blue eyes, he asked, "Sophia, what's wrong? Why are you sad?" It turns out that this caring little guy is *Tim, a boy from another kindergarten class, who introduced himself & befriended Sophia on the very first day.

According to Sophia, the cause of her tears was *Malachai. Apparently they had words and he told her that he was going to have his daddy come beat up her daddy. As those words escaped her lips, she erupted into a whole new cacophony of sobs. I tried gamely to not snicker at the age-old playground taunt...as a grade-schooler I myself partook of the very same taunt. (Rather, I engaged in a tête-à-tête with a classmate, each of us bragging how much beer our dads could drink. I won when I claimed that MY dad could drink a whole six-pack without getting drunk. I know. Priceless.) OK, back to the matter at hand.

After I asserted to Sophia that her daddy was NOT going to get beat up, in fact there would be NO daddy fights, she calmed down a bit. "Those words STILL hurt my feelings" she sniffed. I explained that sometimes kids say silly things that they a) don't mean and b) don't understand.

She expressed some fears for her daddy's safety and then said, "I want him to know!" with a gush of new tears. We called daddy at work, whose parental wisdom (and sense of humor) never fails to amuse me. His response? "Tell Sophia that if Malachai's daddy tries to beat our daddy up, daddy will smush him like a bug."

I've got a sneaking suspicion that I am going to have a lot of material to add to the "Kindergarten Chronicles"!



*Names have been changed to protect the innocent and/or because I think we'll be hearing about them more throughout the year!