Kindergarten 101

Monkey, the Elder, doesn't tell us much about school. It's the curse of trying to be an involved parent I suppose. We know that he gets on a bus that takes him somewhere and that he brings home a notebook that the teacher signs everyday to give his progress. All it has in it, everyday without fail, is a smiley face. Upon inquiry, he doesn't seem to have any knowledge of what occurred in the preceding hours.

By all accounts he could be testing top secret devices in a classified underground lair. Which, you know, if that's the case, I understand, mums the word. He did reveal to us the other day that only kids can be spies. Grown ups are too old to be spies. It would explain why he's so completely dirty when I pick him up sometimes, and not to give in under interrogation...

Last night was his Kindergarten open house. Although he'd never admit to it apparently he does indeed attend class everyday and interacts with a whole bevy of other monkeys and enjoys it.

His teacher, Mrs. M, is a very kind lady with a droll tone of voice, who can't come in for 7AM conferences and resembles Karen Carpenter if she consumed food. The room was adorned with all the trappings for a full day of books and toys and crayons. Dear lord, that's a lot of tadpoles. So, generally, it's much like my office at work, except we have dogs instead of tadpoles and they have their own bathroom.

Somewhere in there, the new principal, the assistant principal (I think) and the PTA recruiter all made appearances. They all fit elementary school stereotypes to a fault, all being jovial and with over-annunciated flare. "We love your children! Please love me, too! Join the PTA!"

One thing that has never changed, there is something awry with all school administrators hair. Pretty much always. The assistant principal had seemed to have an entire water park mountain slide on the left side of her head. And some of the office employees have some interesting do's as well. It must be a dress code thing.

Was all that too mean? I'm just tellin' it like it is...I'm just a hippie in need of a haircut.

What else. He can write his name, yay! He has a few problems with the lower case "a", it looks more like a "q" and hence his name turns into something given by the Jedi Council. Numbers, shapes, and all that stuff are a cinch. He knows around 30 letters of the alphabet. Words are starting to emerge. Day begins at 7:45, lunch at 10:10 in the morning, which is a bit insane, but then they get out at 1:45. He gets Music on Wednesdays and Art on Fridays, and PE the other three days.

Nap time is turning into Daydream time. Enjoy that while you can little mister.

When they do some assessment testing very soon, he'll need to be able to relay the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears from memory. While that is a good thing, as there was a time when he wouldn't go to sleep without that particular tale being told, I'm worried he might have picked up some of the creative liberties that C and I may have inadvertently introduced to make it more interesting. They probably aren't looking to find Goldilocks ending up as a conglomerate CEO and the target of contract hits from the three ninja Kodiaks. Or something. It was a while ago, give me some slack.

I don't remember anything of consequence before the third grade so I often wonder how much of this he'll retain. All the better to keep it documented and filed away for future embarrassm--, um, reference.

Peace,
Simon