Big Yellow School Bus

I was more worried about the squeaker's first day on the bus than about the first day of school. I knew that on the first day of school, the squeaker was aware that I was in the building, nearby, and that I'd take him home since we had come to school together. There was a sense of togetherness about the day that was cozy and comfortable. But I thought he might find the moment of separation at the end of our driveway more unsettling -- getting on that big yellow bus all by himself to head off into the great unknown.

It didn't help that I scared him with some warnings about staying away from the bus when it was moving and never, ever fooling around near the bus wheels. I've been haunted by some bad accidents that I've read about in the past involving school busses. So I've told him to be very careful, and I made him anxious about it without meaning to.

Still, yesterday afternoon, we stood at the end of the driveway and waited, and he was very calm and happy. When the bus finally arrived (quite late, though the driver assured me she'd be on time on future school days), I barely got to say goodbye to the squeaker in the bustle of getting him across the street and on the bus. But he never hesitated or looked back. He climbed the steps and chatted with the driver a minute, and then he sat down. He looked very small to me.

I thought maybe I would feel very emotional about it, but I didn't. He seemed ready for an adventure on his own. And I have only good memories of climbing on the school bus to head off to kindergarten, so I don't see it as something traumatic. I don't even really feel a sense of loss. He's only gone for a short time each day, and I work on some of those days anyway. And when I don't work, that's the pipsqueak's naptime, and since I curl up with the co-sleeping pipsqueak, the squeaker is usually left to his own devices anway.

I guess I am actually pretty excited for him. New friends, a nice teacher, a great school, developing as a reader, field trips. When he was in preschool, he was teary a few times during the first week, but then he was fine -- for me. It was harder for his grandma. He has more fun with her than he does with me (which is kind of painful to admit), so sometimes he resisted school on the days when she had to take him.

Today is the first day she will have to help him onto the school bus. I hope it goes as smoothly as the past two days of "firsts" have. She is feeling much more emotional about him starting school, which makes me wonder what is wrong with me. Should I be feeling all upset about it? Why don't I? I know he is "growing up," but that doesn't really make me sad. He is an awesome kid, and I love the little person he is growing into. I do feel a little wistful when I recall the best moments of his babyhood and toddlerhood, but I suppose I don't feel all that sentimental about it. I am too excited about the future. His future.

Earlier in the day yesterday, before I went home to help him onto the bus, I stopped by the school to drop off some paperwork for the epi-pen to the school nurse. When I stepped into the nurses's office, I could hear a child sobbing. It was a little girl, maybe a first or second grader, and she was trying hard not to cry. But every few seconds, her shoulders jumped with a suppressed sob, and a sad little sound escaped her lips. She was sniffling miserably. The nurse was on the phone with her mom, explaining that the girl was having a bit of a meltdown, and that the guidance counselor was on the way but the girl wanted to speak to her mother first. The girl did apparently have a slight fever, but it was hard to tell if she was really sick or just upset about school.

Listening to her sadness, I thought I was going to cry. She sounded so lost and forlorn, and she was trying hard to be brave. I so hoped that I would not get such a call about the squeaker. I hated to think of him feeling lost and afraid or getting so upset without the reassuring hand of a familiar family member.

If he had trembled or shed a tear as he got on the bus, maybe I would have felt more emotional. But his little brave determined face, his quiet excitement, made saying goodbye easier. It didn't feel like we were saying goodbye as he reached some huge milestone, with childhood behind and a whole new life ahead, or anything so melodramatic. It felt like saying goodbye so that he could go off for a little while and have an adventure -- and then come home, still my same little squeaker. And so he did.

First Day of Kindergarten

Well, I survived. So did the squeaker.

He was his usual understated little self. I left work early to get home to take him to the 1 PM session. He is an afternoon kindergartner, and usually he'll take the bus. But yesterday, they had a shortened session for the kids while the parents met the reading specialists in the cafeteria. The kids learned about bus safety and took a short ride, and then that was it for the day.

We got there a little early and waited in the health unit to hand over our epi-pen and benadryl, along with all the other allergic and asthmatic kids. And there were a lot of them! It made me feel less self-conscious about the squeaker's peanut allergy. More importantly, it reminded me that the school nurse deals with these issues all the time. She didn't seem at all unsure of herself, and that was good.

Then we went to the lobby to wait until the squeaker's class was called to line up. His teacher had said that the kids could bring a favorite stuffed toy or doll, so the squeaker took baby dragon. (I told him that baby dragon MUST be a vegetarian for the day -- no eating the other kids' stuffed dogs and bears and dolls. The squeaker replied that baby dragon is ALWAYS a vegetarian, which was news to me.) We had previously been told that parents had to stay in the lobby while the kids went to their classrooms. But now the assistant principal said it would be OK for parents to walk to the classroom, too.

It was interesting to observe the different demeanors of the kids around us. Some were in their mothers' laps, looking sad and forlorn. Some were a little clingy. Some were excited to be wearing new clothes and shoes, and they didn't seem fazed at all. The squeaker just stood quietly, holding baby dragon and looking around. He was neither clingy nor excited. He was OK holding my hand, but he also didn't mind standing by himself. When his class was called, he went right up and stood in line. I did not go with him, but then other parents did, so I trailed along behind. He didn't look back, though, and he didn't seem anxious at all. When he got to the classroom, I could hear him explaining to his teacher that baby dragon was his special thing, and that baby dragon was ready for school. And that was it.

I went to the cafeteria and talked with some other parents. And an hour and a half later, the squeaker's class showed up in the cafeteria, and we headed home. He told me that he'd had a good day. I asked how the bus ride was, and he said that baby dragon had told him to stand up. "Uh oh," I said. "Does that mean you got in trouble for standing on the bus?"

"Oh, no," the squeaker replied. "I didn't listen to him. Baby dragon just wanted me to do that because he doesn't know any better, but I knew not to do it." Whew.

Today is the first REAL day -- picked up by the bus, arriving at school alone, staying for the full amount of time, and then coming home on the bus. We'll see how it goes!

Smooth Operator

The pipsqueak has provided a lot of entertainment lately. This morning, I think I got a little peek into his dreams. He has this little glass heron that he really loves for some reason. He calls it his “ducky,” and he carries it around. I am sure that I shouldn’t let him do so because it could break quite easily, but he adores it, and it’s hard to come between a toddler and a beloved toy. Lately, he’s wanted to sleep with it, but I tell him it must sleep on the nightstand. I’ve explained that it is breakable and that he must be gentle.

My warnings must have stuck with him because he was still dreaming this morning when I changed him, and he talked in his sleep. “Ducky. Throw it. Broken. Sad. Ducky. Broken.” I kept patting him and telling him that Ducky was OK, but this was mostly because it made ME feel better to comfort him. He really was too asleep to hear me. He didn’t actually seem all that upset, although he did keep saying “Sad.”

Last night, before bed, he told me he loved me. This is a trick that he’s picked up from his brother: when mama seems mad, disarm her with a little love. Since we co-sleep, it’s important to me that the pipsqueak has a perfectly dry diaper at bedtime. I thought it was wet after we’d read the loader book three consecutive times (!!), so I got up to change him (“Like it, like it,” he complained – he means “Don’t like it.”) But when I took off his diaper, I discovered it was still dry.

At least until that moment it was dry, anyway. Then he peed. While I frantically tried to contain the damage (remember, the diaper was off!), shouting “No, stop, no no, wait!!” he looked a little anxious (“Peeing. Peeing.”). I suppose he was afraid I was mad, because he pulled out the big guns, just like the squeaker does when he knows I’m about to begin shouting: “I love you.”

Except that this was the first time he’d ever said that. I was so startled that I stopped and stared at him (while he continued peeing). And then he put his arms out and said, “Kiss?”

What was I getting mad about again? A little pee?? It was all good. These little boys are very smooth.

Germs Everywhere

The pipsqueak has an ear infection, and he’s taking an antibiotic. I think this is the first ear infection for either boy, and I confess to a vague sense of failure about it. His right eye was looking kind of red and swollen, and goop was accumulating in the corner of his eye. I thought maybe he had pink eye. We waited to see if it would go away, but instead it seemed to get worse, and he became increasingly cranky.

So Friday afternoon, we took him to see the doctor. He must have very bad memories of vaccinations, because he is wary the moment we set foot in the doctor’s office. Then he falls apart completely when he has to get on the scale; maybe that confirms to him that we are at That Evil Place. The assistant tried to do a few things, but he was shrieking, “All done!! All done!!” the whole time, so I’m not sure what she was able to ascertain. But then the nurse came in, listened to our explanation, and looked in his ears (while he sobbed “No! No!”), and she said he did not have pink eye, and that the problems in his eye were due to an ear infection on that side. She said he needed antibiotics, and when I asked if it might be better to wait and see, she said the eye symptoms meant we were already past that point.

Still, he seemed so much better in the hours afterwards that we did wait a little. When it became clear that it was not going away easily, we started the antibiotic. It smells awful – kind of a sickly sweet cherry smell – and he absolutely hates it. It’s a 10-day course, and every dose is painful. It seems to bother his stomach because afterwards, he puts his hand on his fat little stomach and says sadly, “Belly hurts.” But the stomachache seems to go away quickly. His eyes are looking much better, but he still seems a little cranky to me. Maybe that is to be expected, as it seems likely that the antibiotic itself could be making him feel a little off.

I don’t know. I’m feeling a little anxious about the swine flu. It’s not so much that I think it’s particularly dangerous. But it does sound like it will be everywhere this fall, and with the squeaker starting school, he seems bound to get it. And every illness like that means complications for his fluid-filled ears and his apparently vulnerable lungs. Ugh. He always seems like such a healthy kid...and then some relatively minor bug leaves him coughing for weeks.

I have been sick this week, though so far the boys don’t seem to have gotten the virus (unless the pipsqueak already had a subtle version of it, leading to the ear infection). When I told the pipsqueak I was sick, he said, “Band aid?” At first I just laughed because I thought it was cute, but when I thought about it later, I wondered how he made the connection between sickness and an injury meriting a band-aid. Certainly we’ve never offered a band-aid to him for sickness.

Anyway, we saw Ponyo over the weekend, and even though I felt so chilled that I had to wrap myself in a sweatshirt on a 90-degree day, I enjoyed the movie. There were lots of very young children there, but they were all very good. The loudest kid was probably my own – “Is that the bad guy???” “What is she doing?” “Will he be able to find the fish again?” “Where is his mama???” We kept shushing him, but he is so used to watching movies at home that it doesn’t seem to occur to him to whisper. We’ll have to work on that.

A Giant Problem

That's the title of the new "Beyond Spiderwick" book that the squeaker's papa is reading to him.

Says the squeaker to his papa: "What does that mean? Does it mean that there is a problem with giants, or that there is a really big problem?"

Papa, realizing for the first time that the title is a play on words: "Um...both."

That kid surprises me every day.

Dutch Wonderland

Our Pennsylvania home is near Amish country; in the next county (Lancaster), across the Susquehanna River, it is common to see the horse-drawn buggies and the traditional Amish dress. There are some Amish people in the eastern part of our county, but there are much larger Amish communities across the river.

One of the peculiarities of Lancaster is Dutch Wonderland, a theme park for young children with lots of rides and a small water park. Despite its name, not much about it is Dutch. There are, however, a few odd displays of “traditional” Amish scenes, with creepy robotic figures behind glass moving around while a recording provides voices and sound. I never visited it as a child; my very left-of-center parents recoiled at the idea of a theme park. But Dutch Wonderland is often recommended to parents of young children in this area, and my in-laws think theme parks are a delight. So last year we visited with the grandparents, and the squeaker had a great time. So we went again this year, this time accompanied by both the grandparents and the cousins.

I tried to take pictures, but most of them were blurry shots of the squeaker flying by on various rides. Because the squeaker is very small, he could not go on all the rides. There were some rides that his cousin could go on but the squeaker could not, even though his cousin is only three months older. This grated on the squeaker’s dad. He wanted to take him on some rides even though the squeaker was really a tad too small (maybe an inch), but I insisted that I thought it was a bad idea. I assume that the seat belts and safety latches are meant for people of a certain size, and I was afraid the squeaker would slip out and fall if he was too small for the ride. Probably not a real concern, but I just didn’t see the value of taking such a risk just for a few minutes of being spun around on a ride.

Plus, the squeaker didn’t really care. If there had been a lot of rides that his cousin could do but he couldn’t, it might have been an issue. But there were only a few. Generally, the squeaker was pretty fearless (though I did see some intense negotiating going on at the top of the slide, which probably looked pretty innocuous until the squeaker found himself standing on the platform). I think he had a great time.

The pipsqueak, on the other hand, found the experience to be something of an emotional roller coaster. The first ride he went on consisted of these little round cars, which go around in an oval; at the small ends of the oval, they whip around in a way that throws the rider around a little. The pipsqueak was not impressed. He started crying even before the ride started because I don’t think he liked being belted in. Then they had to stop the ride to get him and another sobbing toddler off. I was disinclined to put him on any more rides after that. But while we waited for the other kids to ride the log flume, the pipsqueak saw this airplane ride that went around in a relatively slow moving circle. It went fairly high up and then moved around, but it wasn’t very fast, and it wasn’t terribly high. He enjoyed watching it, and then he started waving to the people riding it. Finally, he said, “Ride it.” So we did. He looked pretty horrified when they lowered the safety bar onto his lap, and he clung to me. And as the ride circled around, he looked slightly alarmed. But when it stopped, all he could say was, “Again! Again!” Interestingly enough, repeated rides prompted the same sequence of emotions: excitement, trepidation, alarm, and then enthusiasm for another go-round.

However, his enthusiasm for the airplane ride was nothing compared to his love of the Turnpike ride. On the Turnpike ride, he got to drive – not ride in – his very own car, and he will never be the same. His papa accompanied him as a passenger, but the pipsqueak did all the steering. When I asked his papa if he enjoyed it, his papa replied that the pipsqueak was a study in concentration. He gripped the wheel and stared ahead. The cars were quite large and they had noisy engines (which I’m sure the pipsqueak liked). A single rubber rail in the center of the “roadway” kept them from being steered too far to the left or the right, so as long as they continued to be propelled (via a pedal, which the pipsqueak’s papa pressed throughout the ride), they would advance in the right direction regardless of the skill of the driver. I rode with the squeaker, who also concentrated fiercely. He enjoyed it, but not like the pipsqueak. When the pipsqueak’s turn ended, I could hear him shrieking “More! More!” even though our car was a distance behind his.

He sobbed as his papa carried him back to our wagon, and when his papa set him down, the pipsqueak collapsed in misery, crying “More car...mine...more car. Drive! Drive!” Eventually he sat up and looked around, big fat tears still streaming down his face.

And then Lo!, a car pulled up right next to his wagon. It was a park employee, riding around to keep an eye on things. His car was not quite like the car that the pipsqueak had driven, but he didn’t care. His face lit up; they had listened and brought him a car after all. “Mine. Car. Now,” he said firmly. And then the employee drove away.

The pipsqueak was inconsolable.

Into August

I can’t believe that it’s already August. How does summer fly by so fast? Spring creeps along so slowly, and winter is endless. But June and July always feel like the blink of an eye.

The squeaker has yet another kindergarten assessment next week, this time to provide the teachers with information about where the students are in their learning. In April, the kids were evaluated for kindergarten readiness, but this evaluation focuses on the skills of those kids who were deemed ready. Two weeks after the assessment, the squeaker will start school. I’m supposed to go with him on the first day. Then, I’m to put him on the bus to attend his second day alone. That’s going to be a very odd moment. It’s hard for me to imagine him functioning without the guiding hand of a parent. Will he stay in his seat on the bus? What will he do when the bus gets to school and it’s time to get off? Will he know what to do? How much help will he need to get to his classroom? He does still seem so immature to me in some ways. He wanders in an unfocused way, often more engaged in his imaginary world than in the reality around him. I keep wondering: what if this school thing doesn’t really work? What if it’s a disaster?

But I guess it won’t be. It’s funny that I used to think boarding school sounded almost cruel – why would a mother send her kids away? While I still think it would be too much separation for me, parenthood has given me a new perspective on it. It can be so hard to step back and let your kids find their own way. There is this very hard-to-shake tendency to take their hands, to point them the right direction, to guide them with a very firm hand. I can see how it would be extremely beneficial for a child to have a chance to develop into his or her own person without mom or dad hovering nearby, always controlling. There seems to me to be great value in the chance for failure, and sometimes that chance only comes if mom and dad are unable to intervene.

As for the pipsqueak, he is talking like crazy. In the last few days, he’s started saying, “Mama, where are you??” when he wanders around looking for me. It’s really the only sentence he says, but he is also pairing words together. Last night, I gave him steak and pasta for dinner, but he was having none of it. “Bread. Please,” he insisted throughout dinner. So I made him eat a few little bit of steak for each small piece of a buttermilk biscuit. The kid really loves bread, from pita bread to tortillas to rolls. Even with the bread to bribe him, I couldn’t get him to eat much. So when I was ready to carry him upstairs for bath time at 7:30, I was amused but not really surprised when he gave me this very earnest look and said, “Goldfish. Please.” I told him no, he couldn’t have goldfish crackers, and I explained that it was because he hadn’t eaten his dinner. He thought about this for a moment and then tried again: “Cookies?” No, I said. He looked crestfallen. I didn’t even know he knew what Goldfish were!

The pipsqueak loves food, but he is not as good an eater as the squeaker. The squeaker loves salmon, shrimp, broccoli, steak, tomatoes, most soups, and cherries. He’ll eat most things that are put in front of him, though he does have preferences. He’s not a big fan of pizza, and he doesn’t like spicy things like chili or tacos. He also doesn’t like foods that involve too many different things mixed together, which is his other objection to chili and tacos, and also lasagna. He’s happy to eat the components separately, though, and I think he’ll grow into eating “mixed” food.

The pipsqueak has great enthusiasm for food, but he has an amazing sweet tooth. The squeaker likes candy and cookies and cake; the pipsqueak adores those things and wants little else. He does like bread and cheese, and he will eat broccoli and carrots. Sometimes, he’ll eat fruits like grapes or cherries. He’ll eat chicken only in breaded nugget form. And he loves bread very, very much. Most of the words he learned early on were food words. I think he is going to be a hedonist. Give the pipsqueak some music, dancing, and food, and he is happy. Add a motorcycle, and he is super happy. (Every car trip involves him peering hopefully out the window, looking for motorcycles which he points out with glee.) I have a feeling that he is going to cause his parents a lot of stress. Back to that boarding school idea...