School Daze

Today, for the first time in their academic "career", Jake and Jack left for school in regular clothes, (no uniforms anymore thankyouverymuch) and, for the first time, I didn't drive them, but instead, stood in my driveway drinking coffee and tried not to embarrass them... mission accomplished... they got on the bus, pretty sure they didn't say goodbye and off they went and now I officially have 2 children in Middle School.

The girl is a different story - today she had Kindergarten Orientation and tomorrow will be her official first day... we headed up to school and were, to the surprise of no one who knows us, a few minutes late... we walked in just in time to hear the teacher ask, "Mary F.? Now, which of you is Mary F.?" and it took me a minute to realize that this mysterious "Mary F." is in fact my child and so I piped up with, "Hi. This is my daughter, Mary, but she goes by Eva... it should be on her paperwork somewhere..." and the teacher gives me A Look. Her name is Mary but she goes by Eva? She asks. I tell her that Eva is her middle name. After a show of scratching out "Mary" and replacing it with "Eva" on the name tag she moves on to the next child, also named Mary, also going by another name. This is Mary Jeanne... not Mary Jane or Mary Jean or Mary Gene and it takes several minutes of spelling and corrections to get it right... more sighing and sharpie crossing out and we are finally on to the next child who, yes, hello, also goes by his middle name, Ziggy, which I think means his parents are Bob Marley fans, but could simply mean they like that bald headed cartoon sad sack. 3 kids in a row with name complications is a lot for the teacher so imagine the next 2 children who aren't even on her list?! Quelle Horreur!

After what is clearly going to be known as the Name Tag Fiasco of '09, the children are herded en masse outside to meet the playground lady and we stay inside to be bored to tears ask questions. Questions like: Will I be able to ride the bus with my child on the first day of school? And, is almond butter acceptable if I send a note in his lunch attesting to the fact that it is not peanut butter? And then we are told to basically label our kids everyday with their bus information so that, "they're safe" and all I can imagine is Eva's face if I try and slap a badge on her carefully chosen outfit in the morning and so my mind beings to wander and in order to not fall asleep I looked out the window and see my daughter in much in the same posistion as I... trying not to drift off... oh dear.

After what feels like forever but is actually only a half hour, our children are returned to us and Eva walks in, stops and looks at me and, without preamble says, "No peanut butter. No juice. Oh yeah, and we can't run."

That is what she took away from the playground chat... she went on to add, "I didn't have anything to say, Mom... the answer to every question was, 'because you might get hurt... I kept hoping they would tell us what we could do, but so far, just a lot of rules."

Good stuff.

She is snarky for a 5 year old.

I'm sure it will all be fine because it usually is and I think sometimes I think weird stuff is funny and let's face it, this is my 3rd go through kindergarten and maybe if this were my first child I too would try to find a way to ride the bus with her...

As it is, I'm going to miss her.