I just want you to know that I thought twice before mentioning the larvae.

This morning at breakfast Charlie was telling us about going to the school library, and he offhandedly mentioned "getting into our quiet caterpillar."

And I was nonplussed.  Because AAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Once I'd finished screaming and clawing at my thorax, all panicky and GET IT OUT!  GET IT OUUUUUUT!, I slowed down my hyperventilation long enough to ascertain that he was talking about lining up with his classmates and progressing silently through the halls, a many-legged file of docile locomotion.

Oh.  That.

And then he dove to the floor to illustrate what he meant by "criss-cross double applesauce," and contorted into a fractal.  Kindergarten is kind of awesome.

Charlie's having fun.  He talks only about the minor things -- the nifty timer the teacher uses during their rest period, the name scramble she wrote on the board -- which leads me to believe that the major things are so far taking care of themselves.  Although he admitted being nervous before his first day, chattily confiding it to everyone at the bus stop, I think some of that is falling away, eclipsed by the allure of the new, and seeing old friends on the playground, and having an egg salad sandwich and chocolate milk for lunch every day if he wants to.  Which, you know, hey: dream big, kid. 

Of course, he did casually mention that just in case "something upsetting" ever happened before lunchtime, it would probably be okay, because he could just tear into that egg salad sandwich, "and that will make me feel better!"  So there's plenty that leaks out around the edges.  Last night after supper I made him release the daddy longlegs he'd detained a couple of nights before.  He likes to collect pets from around the yard, a snail here, a spider there, and keep them in his room.  I've maintained a very firm rule, which is that no invertebrates are suffocating horribly on my watch, so he gets to keep them for a day or so before being required to spring them.  (My other firm rule is that I do not re-use the Tupperware once it's been shit in by crickets.)

Each time, alas, he has cried, and this was the worst one yet.  "It's so hard to say goodbye to a friend!" he wept, mirroring back to me what I'd mirrored to him before, when he bitterly mourned his first slug.  "It just hurts...so...much!"  I acknowledged his feelings, soothing him, agreeing, reminding him that it was okay to be sad -- indeed, that it was fitting.  I probably encouraged him a little too much, in fact, because the next thing he said, escalating into keening, was, "It makes me so sad...to lose such a lovable daddy longlegs...and on my second day of kindergarten, too!"

Soooo I'm thinking there just miiiight be some unarticulated anxiety squirming around inside him. 

Any other first-day-of-schoolers here?  How'd it go at your house?

Posted by Julie at 09:30:12 AM in Charles in charge

Comments

I just want you to know that I thought twice before mentioning the larvae.

This morning at breakfast Charlie was telling us about going to the school library, and he offhandedly mentioned "getting into our quiet caterpillar."

And I was nonplussed.  Because AAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Once I'd finished screaming and clawing at my thorax, all panicky and GET IT OUT!  GET IT OUUUUUUT!, I slowed down my hyperventilation long enough to ascertain that he was talking about lining up with his classmates and progressing silently through the halls, a many-legged file of docile locomotion.

Oh.  That.

And then he dove to the floor to illustrate what he meant by "criss-cross double applesauce," and contorted into a fractal.  Kindergarten is kind of awesome.

Charlie's having fun.  He talks only about the minor things -- the nifty timer the teacher uses during their rest period, the name scramble she wrote on the board -- which leads me to believe that the major things are so far taking care of themselves.  Although he admitted being nervous before his first day, chattily confiding it to everyone at the bus stop, I think some of that is falling away, eclipsed by the allure of the new, and seeing old friends on the playground, and having an egg salad sandwich and chocolate milk for lunch every day if he wants to.  Which, you know, hey: dream big, kid. 

Of course, he did casually mention that just in case "something upsetting" ever happened before lunchtime, it would probably be okay, because he could just tear into that egg salad sandwich, "and that will make me feel better!"  So there's plenty that leaks out around the edges.  Last night after supper I made him release the daddy longlegs he'd detained a couple of nights before.  He likes to collect pets from around the yard, a snail here, a spider there, and keep them in his room.  I've maintained a very firm rule, which is that no invertebrates are suffocating horribly on my watch, so he gets to keep them for a day or so before being required to spring them.  (My other firm rule is that I do not re-use the Tupperware once it's been shit in by crickets.)

Each time, alas, he has cried, and this was the worst one yet.  "It's so hard to say goodbye to a friend!" he wept, mirroring back to me what I'd mirrored to him before, when he bitterly mourned his first slug.  "It just hurts...so...much!"  I acknowledged his feelings, soothing him, agreeing, reminding him that it was okay to be sad -- indeed, that it was fitting.  I probably encouraged him a little too much, in fact, because the next thing he said, escalating into keening, was, "It makes me so sad...to lose such a lovable daddy longlegs...and on my second day of kindergarten, too!"

Soooo I'm thinking there just miiiight be some unarticulated anxiety squirming around inside him. 

Any other first-day-of-schoolers here?  How'd it go at your house?