Ready Or Not...

Here she goes! Miss K is ready to take on the world of kindy-garten! Is her mother ready? Yes, you could say that I am. Little Radar is old for her age. She's been at home with us for a good stretch. While she and Emily are joint at the hip, and she is a big help with Claire, it is just time to move on to bigger and better things. That's not to say that I'm 100% jumping for joy. While I'm not experiencing much separation anxiety (kindergarten is only 2 hours and 45 minutes long- no big deal), my apprehension is more related to what kinds of things she'll pick up on at school. (I worked in public schools before I had Katelyn, and I heard some pretty rude and crude things spout out of kindergarten mouths.)

I don't remember much from my own kindergarten years. I mean, YEAR. I really didn't have to repeat kindergarten. Promise. I remember one girl taunted me for wearing the same outfit 3 days in a row (it was my fave- a rockin purple jumper.) I recall a toe-head boy named Seth, who would sneak over and whisper naughty words in my ear during graham cracker and milk time. There was a red-headed girl named Anna, who periodically wet her pants. There was Mark, who constantly had his finger up his nose, and who also wanted to be my boyfriend. (Just my luck to attract the nose miner.) I went to great lengths to keep my distance from Mark. I would creep into the classroom early to make sure that my teacher had not put my chair next to Mark's. If she had, I would relocate my seat, preferably next to my crush, Bevin. I even attempted to deter Mark's pursuit of me by writing him a direct letter, expressing my feelings. My exact words were:

"Dear Mark, I hope you move away so I don't have to be by you." No mixed signals there, right?

There was an outdoor bathroom, which kindergarteners had been forbidden to go. We were told by the third graders that someone's hand had been cut off in that bathroom, and that it was still there. On show and tell day, I had forgotten to bring an object beginning with the letter J. So I ran down the hallway and found my big brother Jake's classroom, pulled him out of class and drug him down to my kindergarten room. He was less than pleased to be used as my show-and-tell for Letter J Day, especially when I shared with the class that Jake and I had sleepovers together sometimes, because he was afraid of the dark.

And then there was the student teacher named Ms. Henderson, who wore too much eye shadow. Did I say I don't remember much about my kindergarten year? I take that back. Anyway, now that I have made this post all about me, here's to wishing Katelyn a great year of kindergarten!