Yesterday night we attended the Kindergarten orientation at Little Boy’s future elementary school. It is a terrifically diverse school that is 40% minority and reports 30 different native languages among its attendees (maybe Little Boy will add Sidaamu Afoo to its rolls, although I doubt at this point he counts as a speaker) while being nestled within one of the best school districts in Massachusetts. We are excited about this school. We are so excited, we brought Little Boy to the orientation.
Of course, we knew we’d be the only people who would drag our kid along to the hour-long info session, so after a quick tour of the halls and the cafeteria, I took Little Boy outside to frolic on the playground in the prolonged but cool daylight. We romped alongside 4 older kids (ostensibly from the Middle East, I’d guess Afghanistan) and a friendly mother & toddler from Malaysia. Little Boy really liked his future playground and it presented some challenges that I expect he’ll soon master, like:
After the sun set and it started getting cold, Little Boy and I retired to the car, where we listened to the radio and watched a lone Asian teenager jump rope on the basketball court. I subjected him to a good portion of Beethoven’s Ninth (“It’s a song of joy, happiness, life!” I said. “It’s scary,” he countered) before finding agreeable UB40 on the New Wave station. After waiting 15 minutes in the car, I would have driven home and allowed Mr. P to walk the 1/3rd mile home, but he had run 9 miles right before the meeting and I feared for his physicality, so we toughed it out for another 15 minutes.
It is bittersweet to see Little Boy get older. I yearn for when he was little, innocent, cuddly, and dependent, yet I am so proud and so excited to see him get bigger. I wince when he refuses to hold my hand, yet I rejoice when he makes sophisticated postulations about the predatory tactics of octopus. Kindergarten looms… and me oh my, this kid is ready.
