It’s been a stressful week for the Mama Bird. I actually used that line in an email I sent not long ago, and it was so… well… apt that I am re-using it. A few weeks ago we took Bear and Monkey to a large amusement park. Monkey started pre-k. Bear started 3rd grade. Winston scratches (still). Just yesterday ex-husband got a job (finally! it’s been 3 and a half years for God’s sake.) But, now, I’m left scrambling for the money to pay for daycare. Hopefully, all this scrambling will only add up to half the total cost, but since nothing in life is certain… Just, basically, I’ve been feeling a little bit screwed and not in the kind of way I’d like to feel so. Oh, by the way, Shep and I did take that trip to Galveston, and it was really, really great. We went for a 20 mile bike ride along the sea wall in the drenching rain, and then the next day we rode 5 miles in the oppressive heat. I have the tan lines, sunburn, skin cancer to show for it. The trip though. God, I needed it.
So, Monkey started pre-k first. She’s not in the same school district as Bear, and so her school started a whole 3 days earlier. The day before school started I took her to a 7:30am “Meet the Teacher” and we met her teacher. The day school started, we walked her to her classroom and arrived just as another child peed all over himself. The teacher was too busy to answer my consuming, self-flagellating concern that I was sending Monkey to school with a rolling backpack when I was specifically warned against it. I was also so busy being worried about breaking the rules that I near plum forgot to weep uncontrollably that my little girl is growing up, and starting school etc etc. The problem is that pre-k, even in a school district, just doesn’t seem to carry the same emotional weight when it only lasts 2 and a half hours a day and seriously, how big of a deal could it be that the teachers barely have time to trot out the play-doh before it’s time to wrap up and get ready for the second shift?
The real test of weeping uncontrollably came the following Monday when she rode the bus the first time. We arrived at the designated bus stop - Monkey, Bear, Winston and me - and we waited a few minutes. When the big yellow bus rolled around and my beautiful, 4 year old daughter climbed aboard, that is when I got all silly with the weeping. My beautiful baby! My darling! Some stranger who presumably is licensed and background checked and sanctioned by the school district is taking my sweet, innocent little love away! Oh God, the humanity! Still, it was okay. Her father picked her up, and she didn’t seem to be at all mangled.
After the dropping off at the bus, Winston, Bear and I picked up the ex-husband and we all went to Bear’s elementary, and dropped him off at his brand, new 3rd grade classroom. Winston was very cute in all the “my parents are super” cheerleading she was performing by licking the hand rails, wearing her Dora sandals on the wrong feet, and insisting on tongue kissing each and every water fountain we passed. I could totally see the PTA parents scribbling down our description as The Parents To Watch.
Bear likes his teacher. He likes being a 3rd grader. He has a fuck lot more homework, and frankly I’m hoping that he will all of a sudden become the super responsible kid I’m still holding out hope I spawned. I can barely tie my own shoes sometimes, much less remember to encourage my child to complete his homework. This is why people should get licenses before they have kids. Or, at least in my case, reminded that not taking precautions can lead to a beautiful little boy who does have to learn something once in a while if he’s going to grow up and take good care of me in my destitute old age.
Monkey has been in school just over 2 full weeks, and now we are debating in which daycare to enroll her. This will, of course, mean no more free school district pre-k. We like to spend as much money as we can, we do. Winston will be there too though, and as much as we can - I’m thinking it’s not so bad to keep the two of them together. Bear will be attending the after school portion. If only it weren’t so bloody chancy in the decision making process. Do I go with the daycare I can afford that’s run and operated by really nice people, and will probably give the girls a good start? Or do I go with the more expensive private school I almost definitely cannot afford, but will get my girls scholarships to Harvard by the ripe old age of 5 and a half?
Throughout all this, Winston turned 3! She’s 3! She’s 3! In celebration I took her to the doctor for her annual check-up, and guess what! Her eyes are all fucked up. She’s going to need glasses on top of lifetime prescriptions for super duper ezcema meds. My poor baby. I blame her father’s genes.
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on Thursday, August 24th, 2006 at 8:41 pm and is filed under The Wild Animals & Former Prime Minister.
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