Hands down, my favorite thing about first grade is walking to school.

Although I love our car time, it’s really nice to not have to get in the car of a morning as we have for the past several years.  Seeing the world through the car window is one thing, but being able to stop and examine a spider web or a willy worm or the perfect yellow leaf is a deeper richer experience that engages all of the senses and not just the eyes.  And what I especially admire about Sean is that he always seems to be tapped into the sensory data.  He has an acute awareness of that which is invisible to most.  The other day as we walked under the trees that line the sidewalk, he turned to me and said, “Mom, I just love the sound of leaves crunching underfoot, don’t you?”  Indeed, I do now.

Most days, AD will join Sean and me on our half-mile walk to school.  There are a few other families in the neighborhood who walk to school occasionally, but for the most part we have the sidewalk to ourselves.

When I was growing up, I never had the sidewalk to myself.  Everyone walked to school and there were plenty of us.  No one’s mom drove them to school.  No one’s mom or (gasp!) dad walked them to school.  Mom kicked us out the door, sometimes before the sun was even up, rain or shine, sleet or snow, and we joined up with the passing human train of children heading south towards school.  The older boys, who were too cool to walk, rode their bikes.  They would blaze up behind us hollering something like, “Watch out! No breaks!”  All the girls would scream and scramble off the sidewalk just before they slammed on their brakes leaving behind a screeching black skid mark three-feet long.  Then they would ride off laughing and popping wheelies with smug satisfaction.

After the long, long, very long walk to the end of the street, about 200 yards, we would have to cross a busy two-lane road. Sometimes there was a crossing guard, but usually not.  We were street-savvy Catholic school kids though, so if there wasn’t a car within 20-feet either direction, or if we didn’t think they were coming too fast, we’d bolt across.

Beyond the busy road lies a set of train tracks.  About 85% of the time, a train would be sitting on the tracks.  Just sitting.  So then a decision had to be made: Would it be better to risk death by crawling under the train or risk the wrath of Sister Mary Somebody for being late.  Always, we crawled under the train.  If you got your shoe caught on the track and got your leg cut off, as legend had it had happened to some girl whose name no one ever knew, then at least you’d have a good excuse and you could be certain that even Sister probably wouldn’t whack the hands of an amputee.

Once you made it past the train tracks, then came real danger.  Then you had to walk past a rat hole of a doughnut shop.  And my oh my, the smell of fresh baked doughnuts on a cold Midwest morning could lead a girl into temptation.  I never had the 20 cents it took to buy a doughnut and therefore never had any hope of getting a doughnut, but my saliva glands never gave up hope.  To make matters more unjust, my brother Jim who always seemed to have money, would get one.  I’d see his bike leaned up against the building and when I looked in the windows, sure enough there he’d be sitting at the counter eating a doughnut.

On the walk home from school, we’d go the reverse route; past the doughnut shop, across the busy road and under the train, but on the way back we’d traverse a fairly steep ditch just on the other side of the tracks.  The ditch was home to unsavory creatures like chiggers and cockle burs that would stick to your socks and shoe laces.  On the other side of the ditch was an old-timey garage that had a Dr. Pepper machine inside and one of those 10-2-4 signs.  Sometimes four or five of us would manage to scrape up 15 cents among us and we’d go in and buy an Orange Nehi or a Dr. Pepper out of the soda machine.  And when the cap was popped, oh the sound!  ChhSsshAAAaaah! — the sound of impending pleasure.  The bottle would come out of the machine so cold that it had frost on the outside and the soda was actually icy.  We’d each take a swig and I have to tell you, to this day, it remains the coldest most refreshing thing I could ever hope to put to my lips.

So yes, at the root of my love of walking to school is my own nostalgia.  I walked to school for eight years and have mostly fond memories.  And I want that for Sean. Of course his memories will be quite different, safer and more sanitary hopefully, but they will be his own.

My hope is that the memory of the three of us walking to school will burrow somewhere deep into his brain and return to warm his heart long after my bones have returned to the earth.  And maybe when he thinks back on these days of walking to school he will be reminded not just of the how the leaves crunched underfoot or of some silly or dangerous thing he did, but how much his mommy and daddy delighted in him.

* * * * *

Another walking home story, this one involving a pumpkin.

For the last six years, the only question in terms of Sean’s education has been which private school he would attend.

Homeschooling has always been an option we’ve entertained; it’s always on the table.  Public school was never an option.  And now for some reason, at this point, I sort of feel like I should apologize for that sentiment or at least insert a feeble “not that there’s anything wrong with it.”  But I’m not going to because that sort of thing makes me weary of late.

So, for the past two years we have done all due diligence in finding the right private school for our one and only son.  We did all the research that any prudent person would do when making an important decision, not to mention a substantial investment.  We researched, we made spreadsheets, we talked to other parents.  We visited, we visited and we visited some more until we narrowed the list down to three schools.

But ultimately none of those three schools seemed right.  All are excellent, highly rated, well-established schools staffed by professional educators.  Their stats are great and the kids we chatted with on campus were impressive. Nary a red flag to be seen.  People who send their kids to those schools LOVE those schools and can’t say enough good things about them.  Those are all good things, things that make for good marketing materials.  But I tend to operate on intuition.  And after all the visits, I never got that vibe – that undeniable voice that whispers in your ear, “You are in the right place. This is it.”

In our area, private school tuition runs about $10,000 a year, give or take, and for ten grand, I need to have that vibe.  The ten grand isn’t for the education — it’s for the vibe.

Well, the summer kind of slipped past and before we knew it, it was the middle of August.  It was two weeks before school started and we still didn’t have our child enrolled in school anywhere.  And so because we couldn’t make a decision, the decision was made for us. We enrolled Sean in public school.  The one school we had not considered, not researched, not visited — was the right school.  God likes to rip up my plans into itty bitty pieces and throw them in the air like confetti.

We are six weeks into the school year and we could not be happier. We love walking to school, we love our teacher, we love the routine.

I’ve definitely got the vibe that at least for now, for this school year, this is the right place.

When Sean was two I put him in a Mother’s Day Out program at the church we were attending.  The fact of the matter is that Sean did not really want to go to MDO. He wanted to stay home and play with Lego’s with me, but I felt some sort of societal pressure to put him in a MDO.  And because I was young and stupid, I did it. It was a mistake.

On his second or third visit to this MDO, after he’d been there about an hour, he told the teacher that he was ready for his mommy to come pick him up.  She told him that I would come pick him up after lunch. He said, “Okay then, lets have lunch.”

Up through Kindergarten, he went to school from 9-1. Which was perfect.  By 1pm I was more than ready to go get him and he was more than ready for me to come and get him.  I’ve discovered that if I can’t get it done between 9 and 1, it probably doesn’t really need to be done.

First grade, however, is a whole new ballgame. Now he goes to school from 8am to 3pm and that has been a bit of an adjustment.  For both of us.  In case you did not know, the longest span of time in recorded history is from 8am to 3pm, it’s like 72 hours.  This was true when I was in Sister Luke’s 3rd grade, it was true when I worked in an office and it is still true.  The fastest span of time is from the moment your child is born until the day they enter first grade. That is actually about 60 seconds.

I walk Sean to school every morning, and then I come home and do a few little chores and by about 10:15 I’m ready to go get him.  I’m looking at my watch and eyeing the big plastic bin of Lego’s that has been left unattended in the den.

On the second or third day of school, I walked him to school and took him to his classroom, and as I bent over to kiss him goodbye, he looked up at me and said, “Mom, go ahead and come get me ’bout noon, okay?”

“Okay, that sounds great!” I said.  No, I didn’t say that.  Instead, I just kissed his forehead and reminded him to be respectful and be obedient, as I always do.

“You know I will,” he said.

“I know,” I said. “See you later.”

Half-day kindergarten worked for me and half-day first grade would work for me too. And half-day high school. And college.

He oughtta be able to crank this assignment out by noon, don’t you think?

Tempus fugit, carpe diem and all that. Last day of kindergarten, pass the kleenex.  This post was originally published last year but seems especially appropriate today as I sit at my desk trying to figure out how it all got away from me so fast.  Neither sweet nor bitter stays on the tongue for very long.  Tempus fugit indeed.

* * *

These days, life seems to click past from weekend to weekend, holiday to holiday, school year to school year.  It is as though I am seeing my life through a View-Master.  With the click of the thumb, one season disappears from view and is replaced with another.  And then another, and another.

Soon the school year will be over and we’ll look forward to lazy summer days, swimming and popsicles.  Click.  Then Father’s Day.  Click. Then Independence Day. Click. And then Labor Day.  Click. And then back to school again.

I was almost 39 when we married and AD was 42.  We were both on the dark side of 40 when Sean came along.  And perhaps because we are older or because we came to parenthood in the 11^th hour, time is the filter which sifts the meaning out of the mundane for us.  Time is our most precious and finite resource and informs our every thought.

The other day I watched a young woman in the grocery store pushing a cart with her baby in the seat.  I watched her stop the cart and lean in to rub noses with her baby and coo sweet round syllables to her.  I estimated her to be about 25 and I thought about how if she lives to be 80, she will get 55 years with her baby.  And I was a little envious.

If I’m lucky enough to live to be 80, I will get 36 years with my child.  I am so grateful that I ever got to be a mom. I am grateful for every single day, even the days when I cry and complain about how hard it is because I know that no matter how many years I get, in the closing moments of life as I am ushered off  into the shadow of death, if I wish for anything at all, it will be more time.

This right-now season that fills the frame of the View-Master, is especially vibrant and crisp and golden.  My eyes want to linger here, to stay just a little bit longer…

Click.

I wasn’t one of those moms who cried the day she sent her kid off to kindergarten. I was excited about the adventure that I knew was ahead for Sean.  I expected joy and it has been delivered in abundance.

But now that the school year is about to come to an end, I am beginning to feel a twinge of sadness, maybe the same sort of sadness that the other mothers felt in the fall.  I am not ready for this sweet season of half day school to come to an end.  For the past three years, we’ve enjoyed living in a small, safe bubble at this school and now that bubble is about to burst. And I’ve got my fingers in my ears waiting for the inevitable pop.

The leaving is so hard.  If only we could just stay a little longer, we surely would.

We’ve been visiting a lot of schools lately as we try to figure out where to send Sean for 1^st grade. So yesterday, after we got home from school I told Sean about the school we had visited that day and how we really liked the 1^st grade teacher.

“But I really like the teacher I have now,” he said.  He quietly dropped his chin to his chest and made that long face he makes when he is trying not to cry.  He tried to blink back the tears but they rolled down his cheeks anyway.

I didn’t have any wisdom to offer him, so I just reached across the table and touched his hand.

He wiped the tears from his face with is forearm.  “Wouldn’t it be nice if the teacher always went with you?” he whispered.

I nodded.  I pulled him across the table and into my lap.

And I thought to myself that a good teacher always goes with you, in some small way, wherever you go.

Last year was the year of The Brunette. This year, it is apparently the year of The Blonde. What can I say brunettes, the times they are a’changin’.

Last year, Sean was in love with his teacher Ms. Vicky, who is a drop-dead gorgeous Latina.  I must say, Sean’s taste in women is exquisite, much like that of his own father who didn’t find anyone exquisite enough to marry until he was 41.

Ms. Vicky’s daughter was also in Sean’s pre-K class and every day Sean would come home from school talking about the two lovely brunettes.  He would sometimes compose a letter to mail to one or the other; other times he would draw a picture for one of them and stuff it into his backpack to take to school.  The television commercials would have you believe that women want flowers or diamonds. No. They want pictures drawn in crayon which have been folded seven times and maybe have milk stains.

Be that as it may, kindergarten has brought in a whole new crop of babes and this year Sean has had his eye on two girls who by description, are about the same – Christie Brinkley in miniature — bright, beachy, athletic, long blonde hair.

The other day, as we drove home from school, he chattered about the two girls and how he was trying to decide which one he should like to marry.  I asked him what he liked about Kate and he cited her slim shape, her long “silvery” hair and that she was smart.  I told him that I thought it was good to know what you wanted in a mate and that those were some good qualities.

I also said that I thought I would grow my hair out long, just like Kate.  He said, no, he didn’t think that that was a good look for me, that I was “too thick” for that kind of hair.  Okay. Very well then.

When I asked him what he liked about Maddie, he named the same things – she has a slim shape, long silvery hair, that she is smart, and she is the fastest girl in the whole school.

A fast girl in kindergarten is fine, a fast girl in high school, not so much.

“And she includes everybody,” he added.

I had to sigh. Oh that every kid was taught to include everybody.  Wouldn’t our schools (and world) be a better place?

I was delighted that Sean recognized that including others is a wonderful quality in a person — something to appreciate and admire and something to which he should aspire.

Last week Sean’s kindergarten teacher asked me if I’d be willing to come up to the school and lead a couple of 15-20 minute classes on pumpkins. I know my way around a pumpkin and it sounded like fun, so I said sure, why not.

When I arrived at the school,  the teacher gave me a 10-second overview of the lesson plan, three pumpkins and a knife. Then she blindfolded me, spun me around three times and pushed me towards my classroom.

The lesson plan was this:  She would send three or four children at a time to my room where we would list on a whiteboard all the characteristics of a pumpkin. Then we would read a short book on how a pumpkin starts from a seed, grows into a pumpkin, and then the seeds from the pumpkin return to the ground where more pumpkins grow.  Oh I’m sorry.  I just gave away the ending.  Hope that doesn’t ruin it for you.

Anyway, after the book, the children were to explore the pumpkin.  They were to put their hands in, on and around the pumpkin, they were to experience pumpkin slime and become one with the pumpkin.  At which time I would send them back to the teacher covered in pumkin guts and she would send me three more unsuspecting children (insert scary maniacal laugh).

If I’ve learned one thing as a mother, it is this:  managing children is a lot like throwing a party.  Any possible thing that can be done ahead of time, should be done ahead of time.

With that thought in mind, I decided that I would cut the tops off the pumpkins before the children arrived to my room so that I wasn’t faced with wielding a knife while a small crowd of 5-year-olds tried to “help”.  But the pumpkins the teacher had given me were as hard as bowling balls. The knife that I had just wasn’t cutting it.  Cutting it!  Ha!  I crack myself up.

About time this, another teacher, Ms. Danielle, happened by my room and saw that I had worked up a bead of sweat trying to cut the top off a pumpkin.  She did not point and laugh but politely asked how it was going.  I said, not so well and I jokingly asked her if she happened to have a chainsaw.  She said, no, but she did have a hacksaw.  I laughed and then I noticed she wasn’t kidding, so  I said, “Dudette? Seriously?”

Ms. Danielle slipped away and quickly returned with a hacksaw.  I immediately had a series of thoughts: 1) Ain’t it great living in Texas!? 2) Mental note to self:  Do not tick off Ms. Danielle.  3) Wow, she’s got her own hacksaw!  4) If she keeps a hacksaw in her purse, I wonder what she has under the car seat?

Side Bar:  If I were lost out in the wilderness with someone, I would pick Ms. Danielle over Bear Grylls because for one thing, she carries a hacksaw and that would be useful. And two, she seems pretty pragmatic.  I’m sure she would not get naked and jump into a freezing cold river for demonstration purposes as Bear likes to do.  And three, being a woman, she would ask for directions and we wouldn’t get lost in the first place and we would go shopping instead and we would not have to eat bugs because we could just go to Starbucks or Panera.

There for a minute, I thought there was point to this post, but apparently I was mistaken.

All in all, I think the Intro to Pumpkinology class was a success.  No one threw up or fainted or suffered any permanent psychological damage other than three small pumpkins.

Sean’s kindergarten teacher called me on Sunday night to ask if I would be the art teacher this week at school.  I was thrilled when she asked because I have been chomping at the bit to use my hard earned, but mostly useless, degree in art.

When I think of all the time, money and effort I invested in my degree, I remind myself that education is never a waste.  I tell myself that for me, education was about enlightenment more so than employment. Which is good, because that’s pretty much how it has worked out.  In the ten years since my graduation I have on many occasions been enlightened but have yet to be employed.

As Mrs. D. worked her way toward asking if I would help out, I was mentally planning my lesson:  I would start out with color theory, maybe introduce  perspective drawing combined with a brief survey of Classical Greek and Roman art and then….

“I was thinking we could decorate small pumpkins,” she said, “Have the kids paint faces on them, maybe glue on some google eyes….”

“Yes!” I said, “That’s exactly what I was thinking!”

Okay, so we’ll skip the Greek ideals of beauty and go right for the google eyes.

I will teach those little children to glue on google eyes using the Greek ideals of beauty.  Education is never a waste.

This is what you can do with or without an art degreee

Last week Sean came home from school with a tiny padlock.  I asked him where he got it and he told me that he had earned it at school.

I’m not quite clear on the specifics, but from what I gather, if you stay on “green” all day, you get four pennies. If you get in trouble for something, then you go to yellow and half of your wages are garnished.  If you are really troublesome and have to go to red, then you have to go out in the school yard and pull weeds.  No, not really, but I wouldn’t object to that.

Anyway, at the end of the week, you get to spend your pennies in Mrs. D.’s fabulous gift shop and maybe get something cool like a padlock.

So, on the way home from school earlier in the week, I asked Sean how his day went and if anything noteworthy happened.

“I got four pennies today!” he beamed.

“That’s great!” I said.  “I’m so proud of you!”

“Yeah, and the best part is that I was on yellow, but Mrs. D. forgot and gave me four pennies anyway! I was only supposed to get two!”

“Oh,” I said quietly.

He didn’t see taking the two extra pennies as a lapse in character but rather a windfall.

I asked him if he thought there was anything wrong with that, taking the extra pennies even though he hadn’t earned them.  He said no, that she had given him the four pennies, so they were his.

We had a brief discussion about how whenever you take or keep something that you haven’t earned or doesn’t belong to you, even by mistake, it’s stealing — even if it’s a small thing and even though it might seem like not a big deal.

I asked him what he thought he should do. He fell silent as he tried to think of a solution other than fessing up and returning the two pennies.

Finally he asked, “Give the pennies back?”

The next day when I picked him up, I asked him if he had remembered to give Mrs. D. the two pennies back.

“Yes,” he said, “and I did it the very first thing when I got there.”

“Very good,” I said, “What did she say?”

“She said thanks for reminding me,” he reported.

“Look right in my eye,” I told him.  “I’m about to tell you something super important.”

I told him that I was very proud of him for doing the right thing, every bit as proud as when he earns four pennies.

He blinked both eyes at me and smiled and then abruptly changed the subject.

Hopefully, when I talk to Mrs. D., I’ll find out that it’s true, that he gave the pennies back. Otherwise I’m raising a stealer and a liar.

AD and I are both creative types, so it is not so surprising that Sean is creatively bent as well.  AD is creative in a money-making, problem-solving, making-the-world-more-functional kind of way.  Whereas I don’t know how to do any of that; I just seem to need to swim upstream.

Having been upstream a time or two, I know that insisting upon doing everything your own creative way can make life harder than it has to be.  And I don’t want that for Sean.  I want him to understand that sometimes, in certain matters, it’s better to just go along — even if you do know of a prettier way to do things.

Recently, I wrote about how I tried to teach Sean how to make tally marks and how I was met with some resistance.  The resistance wasn’t willful disobedience; it was just that he knew deep down in his heart that his way was better.

The next day, we had another tally mark homework assignment, and again, he wanted to make tally marks in his own way, in groups of six.

And once again I tried to explain to him that where we are located in the time and space continuum it is universally accepted that tally marks are made in groups of five; four vertical lines with one diagonal line cutting cross the group of four.

On another planet, I told him, it could work differently, but here on Earth, someone, somewhere, long, long ago, maybe even God, decided that this is how tally marks should be made.  Enough people agreed and thus it became a convention, meaning that’s just how we do it.

I could tell from his glazed over expression that my dissertation on tally mark norms and conventions had fatigued his spirit.  And that as a creative person he did not much esteem norms and conventions.

He twisted his mouth and looked up to the left, as though he was giving the matter thoughtful consideration. He tapped his pencil on the counter.  Then he shook his head.  I had failed to persuade him.  No, he said, he was going to go with groups of six.  He said that six was a nicer number than five.

I told him that would be fine, but that IT WAS WRONG! And then I pulled all my hair out in one clump.

No not really.

I smiled and gave no indication I cared one whit. I just told him that he probably wouldn’t find that many people who would be willing to change over to his system.

“That’s okay,” he said, “I like it better this way.”

Whatever dude. Jump in and swim upstream.

Sometimes in life, you need to be creative and other times you just need to follow the rules.  And the wisdom is in knowing the difference.

How to teach that? I have no idea.  Maybe he’ll figure it out on his journey upstream.