May
11
Riley has what I suppose is his first best friend, a boy named A. whose family moved here from India a couple years ago. They are in the same preschool class and I suspect A.’s interest in Transformers has a lot to do with Riley’s current obsession with Autobots and Decepticons and “Octomus Prime” and Bumblebee and Oh My God There Are So Many Fucking Transformers I Can’t Even Name Them All Oh Wait Yes I Can Buzzsaw Hound Ratchet Starscream Etc Etc Etc Etc.
A’s mother was nice enough to propose a play date a while back and we’ve met them a few times since, usually on a weekend afternoon at a playground where Riley and A. can go nuts and Dylan can scurry after them, beaming with the deranged joy of a younger brother getting to play with the big kids.
Last Sunday we congregated at a park so Riley and A. could ride bikes (with Dylan toodling around on his tricycle) and A’s mom asked us where Riley was going to school next year. A. would be moving on to kindergarten at a public school; was Riley?
Well, I said, and kind of trailed off for a minute.
The thing is, we don’t plan to do that, and it suddenly felt like an awkward conversation, like the fact that we were making different choices somehow underscored that one was right and one was wrong. I mean, I know better, but still.
Riley’s birthday is August 31st, so he will be five on the cutoff day for kindergarten. Which means we could send him to regular kindergarten, but he would be the very youngest child in class.
I have no doubts he would do perfectly fine academically, because he’s a smart kid who mastered the basics a long time ago. I’m less sure about his maturity level, his emotions, and his ability to pay attention.
His center has a kindergarten program, so he can stay there another year and get the same level of education he’d get in a regular school. It’s another year of siphoning our checking account nearly dry every month, but of course public kindergarten with before and after school care wouldn’t be inexpensive either. That’s another thing: I really, really hope by the time he is going to public school—the big cheery-looking one just a few blocks away, assuming we still live in the area—that we have the sort of schedule that allows one of us to walk him over there in the morning and pick him up in the afternoon. I don’t want him to have to stay after school is over, waiting for one of his parents to get off work.
Anyway, I hope we’re doing the right thing keeping him in the same place for now. I’m kind of saddened to think about his best friend moving on while Riley stays in the same place, but they would have separated anyway. It’s just hard to know who will be getting the better experience. And how much it varies by kid, and by teacher, and by a thousand other factors that are impossible to predict.
In other confusing developmental news, Dylan has decided he is terrified of lawnmowers. The trigger for this happened a couple weeks ago when someone had a leaf blower nearby and the noise scared the shit out of him. He flips out every time we leave the house, crying and screaming and wanting to be carried, and if there is even a distant drone of a lawnmower—which is nonstop this time of year while the grass is growing like gangbusters—he refuses to be outside. Last weekend, when we finally had two consecutive days of amazing weather, I couldn’t get him to come in the backyard at all. If we forced it, he stood there shrieking until I thought he was going to barf.
I’d put headphones on him, but, well, HA HA HA HA no. This is the same kid who will Firestarter your face off if you try and put his hood up, so.
It reminds me of the stage Riley went through where he was scared of planes flying overhead, and man, that went on for a long time. I don’t think anything helped, it was weeks of screaming and running across the backyard to get away from the jet buzzing 25,000 feet above his head.
So! Any advice or war stories about kindergarten cutoffs and whether to send a kid or hold them back, or toddlers who refuse to go outside right when the weather finally lets us leave the damn house? Or if neither of those topics interests you, how about potty training, because hey, I’m kind of flailing at that, too.
May
9
What a wonderful day it’s been. Beautiful weather, happy kids, nowhere we had to go and nothing we had to do but enjoy ourselves.
I couldn’t have asked for a better—well, okay, maybe if Dylan would cooperate JUST ONE YEAR for the Mother’s Day photo I keep trying for:
But never mind. It was perfect.
I hope you had a wonderful (mother’s, or otherwise) day too.
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