A Conversation with a Kindergartener

I've already posted this on Facebook, but I had put it here.

I got this in an e-mail from my mom, who takes care of my daughter after school:

Em: Eddie taught me a new word that I didn’t know today.
Gma: (dreading answer) What word was that?
Em: Diarrhea
Gma: Do you know what that is?
Em: Loose poop.
Gma: Yup. How’d that come up in conversation?
Em: It’s “D” week!

Go letters of the week! Teaching kids the important stuff!

P.S. I love you, Em!

My kid's too busy to be a star

Well, and so am I for that matter.

My daughter's kindergarten class has a "Star of the Week" where one kid for a week gets to have a poster displayed in the classroom about themselves: their family, their favorite foods, their favorite places to go, etc. Great way for the kids to get to know each other.

My daughter will be the Star next week. I hope.

She brought home the poster she needed to fill out on Monday and to be returned preferably by Friday, but next Monday would be OK. I asked my mom to help brainstorm ideas of what my daughter could color/cut-out-and-paste/draw/write on the poster; I would like to be able to help her (aren't moms supposed to do this stuff?).

But...

Monday I had a meeting at church and didn't get home until 9:30 (past my daughter's bed-time)
Tuesday my daughter had a rehearsal for The Sound of Music until 6 and then we had to go get new jazz shoes because she refuses to stop growing. Then of course she needed to be fed (she refuses to stop being hungry, too!).
Wednesday (yesterday) I had to go to my second job until 10:00
Thursday (today) I will be home for a while until I have to go to choir practice for church...and I hafta go since I'm likely to have a small solo-bit in the piece we're performing on Sunday.
Friday (tomorrow) we will be able to work on it more, but are already scheduled to have friends over for dinner
Saturday we already have plans (and paid for them) to be at a regional event for our church (notice a theme here, yet?) until the afternoon. After that we'll need to finish the poster if we want to be able to finally see the Halloween fireworks at Disneyland
Sunday we have church, and then church and then more church. And grocery shopping in there somewhere...

So you see, Mrs. Nygaard, my kid and I just have way too much on our plates as it is. She's much too busy to be a star next week. Maybe we could pencil something in for late April? Wait, let me check the calendar...

WRITER'S UPDATE:

We were able to get my daughter's poster done over the weekend: before dinner on Friday and before church Sunday morning. It turned out great!

What's my name again?

I have a wonderful mom. She works from home and has volunteered to pick up "Em" from Kindergarten and keep her with her at home in the afternoons. It's awesome! Gone are the days of paying $800 a month for preschool (yes, it's pricey, but it kinda has to be if you want your child to be prepared for school). I can finally really start saving for a down payment so Em and I can have our own place.

Having free, familiar childcare is great. However, there is one event that can happen: your child calls you by the caregiver's name. Or just the opposite, your child calls the caregiver, "Mom."

I've been through this before, when my daughter was at an in-home daycare when she was a toddler. She would call "Annie" "Mommy." Some other moms I knew got upset when their kids used the wrong name for them. For me, I shrugged it off, knowing that Em knew I was her "Mom" and that Annie was someone who took care of her. At that young age, the word "Mom" didn't mean anything more than "woman who feeds me and makes sure I don't hurt myself." In my heart, and hers, I was more than that, but she didn't have a different word for it.

Now that Em has started Kindergarten, she's mixing up her names again. She'll mistakenly call me "Grandma" and call her Grandma "Mom." Sometimes she catches herself right away and giggles, "Whoops! Sorry!" Sometimes we see how long it takes her to realize what she said. It's actually kind of endearing. And I'm sure my mom doesn't mind. Em's as much her kid as she is mine, since we've been living in my folks' house since Em was a little over a year old. She has three "parents" but she definitely knows who's who when it comes to genealogy.

For me, it means she's comfortable where she is. Since I know she's getting the same kind of care from my mom as she would get from me, she's welcome to call my mom "Mom" from time to time.

So thanks, Mom! I mean, Grandma! Wait, what's your name? What's mine?

Super Trooper

"Em" starts Kindergarten in the fall (previous post), so we headed to the doctor's office to get her physical and shots. On the drive over, I told her what we were doing, and she asked if she would get shots. I told her most likely, and reminded her that they might hurt. Em's had shots before, and she's seen me get my shots, so she knew what to expect. Em replied, "That's ok, they keep me healthy!" Atta girl!

So we're in the examining room, and "Rachel," the nurse, explains that it might hurt, and that Em can hold my hand if she wants while the shots are administered into her legs (why not in the arms, I don't know). She drizzles some liquid on Em's legs, so it won't hurt as much, then gets ready for the first shot (no clue which one it was). Em just watches her stick the needle in her leg, like she's watching a ladybug crawl around. No biggie. She does the same with shot #2.

Then the nurse moved over to the other leg to do the MMR (this one I remember!) and proceeds as before. Em just watches her. About 5 second after the shot's in, Em starts to cry a bit. The nurse explains (now she tells me) that this one stings quite a bit more. After 10 seconds of "Ow, Ow, Ow, Ow, Ow!" hiccupping cries, Em's stops crying suddenly and is ready to go home! She has one more shot to get in about a week since they were out of stock this time, then she's ready for school!

I'm so proud of my little girl. My Super Trooper! Three shots and only 10 seconds of crying. Not bad for a 5-year-old. My sister's gonna be embarassed that she doesn't handle shots this well.

I'm choking up, and it's only March!

Today my daughter is no longer my baby. She is growing up. I drove over to the public elementary school near my house to put her name in for Kindergarten Open Enrollment. The school she's "supposed" to go to is not far away, but this one is closer and gets higher test scores out of it's students (they won't assign this school to my neighborhood because it's across railroad tracks from us, and they don't want kids crossing tracks to get to school).

So, if her name gets picked from the lottery later this month, she'll start school on August 20!! That's only 5 months away! 5 months and my little girl is a big girl going to a big-kid school. Where did the time go? Can it really have been 3 years since I drove a U-Haul with 2 cats and 1 toddler down from Washington to start over? Has it been almost 2 years since my daughter got her very own Annual Pass to Disneyland?

It can't be time yet for Kindergarten! I'm not ready! She is, she's more than ready, but I'm not! She just learned to tie her shoes a few months ago! She's still on training wheels! She can't sleep anywhere without her blue receiving blanket! Where'd my baby go?

Luckily, she still lets me call her "my baby." She knows she's not a baby, but she knows she's my baby. And here come the tears....