Kindergarten: Day Two
First time on the school bus!
Just like he’d done when going to preschool for the first time, he bounded away and I had to call him back for a hug. HRH and I watched the bus pull out, the boy’s face sporting a big grin as he took his seat; we waved madly as the bus went down the street, and yes, I felt that wrench.
I didn’t cry till forty minutes later on the highway on the way to do groceries, though. And I sat there at a red light with tears on my face, wondering why. I think it has to do with the huge step he’s taking, going somewhere on his own and making his own way through new situations. I can empathise with the enormity of that, and how overwhelming it can be at times when you least expect it. Getting on that bus for the first time symbolizes quite a lot. He is strong and cheerful and brave and social, and I don’t anticipate problems with him adjusting at all, although I fully expect his sensitivity will raise a few interesting questions about the other children’s behaviour. He’s already having a fabulous time with the whole idea of the bus and school, and eager to meet new friends.
I’ll pick him up from his half-day at lunch, and I expect to hear a lot of enthusiastic but slightly garbled reports.
Kindergarten: Day One
Five loads of laundry Tuesday night, three yesterday, two today. I know, my life is so scintillating. The washer seems to use warm water when set on cold, though, and vice versa. One suspects the inlet hoses were reversed between the source pipes and the machine intakes during installation. One must tactfully suggest this to the resident installer and request a fix. [ETA: Ah. Turns out the cold water intake on the machine was marked with red. I’d have absolutely been with HRH, then, in assuming that was the hot intake. Problem solved.]
I am suffering from the worst allergies I’ve had in ages, which is saying something because I used to get weekly allergy shots to combat them. I know I’m in a new geographic location and every region has its own pollen profile to which one must accustom oneself, but this is awful. I’m not alone, though; it seems to be hitting across the board in southern Quebec. I’ve lost track of how many allergy pills I’ve taken and when, which is not the most ideal of situations. My sinuses and throat are grumpy, grumpy customers, and my temper’s not the best, either.
Speaking of which, I was feeling rather guilty that I had the boy home for all of four days and was already looking forward to school beginning. The prep, the packing, the move, and the unpacking drained me of energy and cope, and the poor kid, who has actually been in a fabulous mood, has been bearing the brunt of it. We’ve had a few I’ll-finish-this-then-play-with-you, Mama-Mama-Mama-Mama, I-TOLD-you-I’d-be-there-when-I-was-finished-you’re-just-making-it-take-longer moments, but both of us have emerged relatively unscathed. We’re in the middle of an honest to goodness heatwave, and the boy inevitably selects the high-heat part of the day for playing outdoors. But the basement is cool, the DVDs are my friend while I finish the last of the unpacking, and we’ve run errands each day as well that get us out of the house.
We asked the delivery guys to leave us one of the appliance boxes. The boy played with one in the backyard all yesterday afternoon. I cut a door and a window for him, and he dragged it under the lilacs behind the play structure and used it as a command module. Eventually it got dragged forward to the end of the slide and he slid into it for a while, crowing with his unique giggle. Hours of amusement in a cardboard box.
Today was Day One of the three-day progressive entry for kindergarten. We packed up all our school supplies in the boy’s new backpack and met his new teacher and a third of his classmates for an hour. Tomorrow he takes the school bus in and I meet him at lunch to take him home, and on Friday I take him in after lunch and he buses back. There are seventeen kids in his class, twelve of them boys. Mrs Lisa, his teacher, said brightly that it was going to be an… active class, and all the parents snickered. He’s already seeing the other boys as his friends, and at least two of them are on his bus, so that will help. (One of these co-bus passengers has his full name, and the other his nickname, so we three mums are already foreseeing a little trio of proper noun terror happening.) It was interesting to watch the small group of boys explore the classroom while the teacher explained some of the routine to us. They were given their choice of four activities, and they all headed for the Lego and cars without hesitation. After fifteen minutes of that, the boy got up and moved to the book corner where he sat down in one of the comfy chairs and opened a book. One by one the other boys followed. After fifteen minutes in the book corner he moved back to the Lego, then to explore the play kitchen area, and he was followed again. He ended up back at the book corner while two boys rummaged through the play kitchen, one boy went to read as well, and one went back to the Lego. It was nice to see that he felt comfortable and confident enough to move on when he felt like it, and not wait for someone else to demonstrate that it was okay. It was also reassuring to see that he was taking his time, too, settling down to involve himself in each activity for a decent block of time instead of running from one to the other. He got to play in the playground afterwards, too, and one of the boys stopped by with his dad on their way down the street, and the boys did a few circuits of the play structure together, and waved and shouted goodbyes when they left in their respective cars. All in all, it was a terrific experience.
I took him to Tim Hortons for lunch as a treat, and we shared a ham and cheese sandwich. He downed his carton of milk in one go. I think I’m going to have to buy a cow. Or perhaps shares in a dairy farm.
The obligatory photos:
That’s a double thumbs up from the kindergartener as we head off.
Tomorrow is Day Two: The Bus Trip To School.
Last Day
It’s the boy’s last day of preschool today.
I’ve known this was coming all week. I was preparing for it, doing the last of the kindergarten shopping, scheduling the gift-buying for his educator, and so forth. But it wasn’t until last night when we picked him up and they told us that it was going to be an end-of-summer fiesta/birthday for one of the kids/our boy’s farewell party that it really hit me. One last drop-off; one last pick-up.
I’m going to miss them. They’re fabulous people, and they’ve done wonderful work with the boy. Numbers, letters, songs, attention span and focus, helping out, French, socialization, skills and techniques; they know their stuff. Even though he’s not officially attending after today, now that we’re in the neighbourhood I know that we’ll see them often enough. Heck, they’re coming to our housewarming party; I think we’re booked to help stain their fence next spring. The boy has an open invitation to hang out on any Friday night at the new TGIF for kids thing they’re doing outside of the regular daycare hours to give parents a night off for themselves or to run errands without handling a squirmy child (and upon being told that there would be Friday night babysitting available, all the kids planned for a pyjama night there with pizza at some point amongst themselves and informed the educator). And they’ve stressed that we have an open invitation to drop by after school any time, which just happens to be across the street.
The boy is excited. He’s been looking forward to the party today (there is a pinata and he is determined to be the one to whack it open), and he’s excited about kindergarten next week. He did a lovely picture for his educator at the kitchen table this morning, with great printing (look at that spacing!) and a picture of a robot, his car and trailer, and a robot bug ( “But not a bad robot bug,” he said to me. “It doesn’t sting or bite.” “I know it’s a good robot bug,” I said, “because you’ve put a smile on it.”).
He’s grown so much over the past two years there. About a year ago his main educator told HRH that if she got him through to kindergarten without having to take him to the hospital with a broken bone she wanted a medal. Well, we haven’t gotten her a medal; we think we’ve done something better. We’re going to present her with a gift certificate for the nearby Spa Strom so she can treat herself to a day of relaxation and pampering. We figure she totally deserves it after corralling him for twenty-four months, along with ten other kids.
Tonight we’re having a special dinner to celebrate the end of preschool: steak, roast potatoes, steamed broccoli with cheese sauce, and we’ll walk to the nearby ice cream parlour (recommended by his educator!) for a dessert treat. Next week we have two days off together, and then an hour-long private meeting with his new teacher on Wednesday, a morning half-day on Thursday where he’ll take the bus in and I’ll pick him up at lunch, and an afternoon half-day on Friday where I’ll drop him off after lunch and the bus will bring him home. On one of those days we’ll go get new library cards from the local branch, and stop to play at the big playground we pass that’s halfway between school and home.
First days are hard. But so are last days. Sometimes, though, you don’t realise it for a little while.
Surfacing
We’re in packing and prepping mode, but it all feels like we’re running in place. We can’t pack the basic rooms of the house yet because we live in them and we’re not moving for another two and a half weeks. We’ve packed the closets and most of the garage. And we’ve sort of run out of room in which to put boxes while still having living space. This is problematic.
We were going to pack the knickknacks and artwork last night, except we had no packing material, and we’ve packed all the towels and sheets and such. HRH is bringing home paper tonight.
I’m going to take this afternoon and start packing my office, to the extent that I can do that and not mess up my workflow or workspace. If HRH can dismantle my bookcases tonight we’ll have an extra wall against which to start stacking boxes that won’t be in anyone’s way. My closet is problematic in that I kind of have a desk in front of it, so I don’t have room to easily hand stuff down. I may have to move my desks and computer cables in order to pack the closet, which feels like two huge jobs instead of one big job, but if it has to be done then it has to be done.
Really, most of this work is going to have to be done the week between taking possession and the actual move, because we’ll be able to shift boxes over to the house and free up space for other boxes. But in the meantime it’s a frustrating situation to be in. It will all be worth it, I know, but treading water doesn’t feel productive. In the meantime I can sort through the kitchen cupboards for things we don’t use often, like roasting pans and baking tins and the good china, but where we’re going to put it so it’s all safe I do not know.
Spinning is, frankly, maintaining my equilibrium. Look at my pretty yarn.
Both are from the same wool top, four ounces of Projekt B (which is my eternally awesome LYS Ariadne Knits‘ house line) hand-dyed BFL. The top photo is of a two-ply heavy fingering weight yarn (around 17 WPI), of which I’ve got 233 yards, and the bottom photo is of about ten yards of chain-plied leftover. This top was a dream to spin. BFL is silky and drapey to begin with, but it was a genuine pleasure to spin this after working with wool/mohair for a while. I did it worsted with a short forward draw on a 10:1 ratio (which often translates into a short backward draw for me). The yarn is so even and soft. I’m pretty impressed with the colour-matching in the plies, too. I split the top in half and spun each separately after lots of predrafting, and the repeats are surprisingly even, with only a bit of colour mismatch as the repeats shift in one or another of the plies.
The colourway is called “Little Miss Tiggywinkle” and while I am not usually a fan of pink, this is lots of fun and reminds me of a bowl of mints or peony flowers. There are lots of baby arrivals on the horizon, and stocking up on baby-appropriate colourways is not a bad idea.
We Have Yarn
288 yards of lovely two-ply harvest-coloured yarn, in fact.
I plied the HAY single I spun at the Twistle Sheep to Shawl event with with a semi-woollen Corriedale single that I dyed a deep red colour. The tone of the original result was too cool so I overdyed it with yellow and got a good brick red that complements the lofty woollen-spun single I spun from the yellow/orange/red of the HAY batts.
Stats for my records:
* 3.5 oz HAY batts
* about 2.5 oz Corriedale (I spun about 4 oz, used about two-thirds)
* Total weight of yarn: 5.95 oz
* Total yardage: 288 yards
* WPI: approximately 10 wraps per inch (worsted weight)
Original HAY batts plus Corriedale single:
Pretty, squishy yarn:
