The conundrum of teacher gifts

I've tried a few different ideas for Christmas gifts for teachers over the past few years.  I have several good friends who are teachers so I polled some of them for ideas of what not to get.  No mugs (obvious), no homemade gifts by kids (sounds harsh, I know, but the teachers don't know what to do with them afterwards and feel bad throwing them away), no wine (in case they don't drink).  With all that in mind, I've normally stuck with something small from Ten Thousand Villages and then baked them some goodies based on what I already know they like.  This usually seems popular.  This year however, Emily's teacher announced right off the bat in September that she LOVES chocolate brownies and I've already heard that many of her students' families are giving her brownies.  So, while I am willing to put myself out there and say that it's possible that I make the best brownies EVER, I'm not going to make Mrs. B any brownies.

So, what to do?  I started with getting each teacher a can of Ten Thousand Villages Milk Hot Chocolate (super yum).  And I was thinking of taking the easy way out with a Chapters gift card but then I got a small catalogue in the mail from Unicef.  It's entitled Unicef Survival Gifts 2011/21 Gift Guide.  You can view the catalogue online here .

The first page of the catalogue reads: "Give gifts from our carefully chosen Survival selection, and give children what they need most to survive and to thrive."  The next page of the catalogue has a detailed map of where the Unicef Survival gifts will go (some to Central America but most to Africa).  The gifts are divided into sections: Health, Education, Water, Food, Emergency and Play.

I was intrigued but assumed that, like most Living Gift programs, none would be priced at what I budgeted for teacher gifts (around $20 per teacher).  I was wrong.

You can buy pencils for a school for $20 (that is 1,000 pencils), water purification tablets for $20, a Plumpy'Nut packet (peanut-based food for a child) for $10, therapeutic milk for $25, a writing and sketching pack for $10, and storybooks for $23.

I chose the pencils for schools for one teacher and the storybooks for another.  There are also lots of gifts in the $30 range as well.  I particularly like the Art-in-a-Box for $30 and the Literacy Pack for $30.  I will be mailed a card for each teacher that will inform the teachers that these particular gifts have been bought in their name.

I think they'll appreciate these gifts a lot and I know there are children in Africa who will appreciate them even more.  It feels good to do something like this and to know that I'm not adding to a pile of gifts that aren't really needed.  I think it also sends a great message to my kids about eschewing consumerism and using your money where it is really needed and that giving a gift doesn't have to be about buying something tangible.  It can be about finding a different yet meaningful way to express your appreciation for someone that also helps someone in dire need in the process.  I hope that they see how well this represents the meaning of Christmas when they present their gifts to their teachers.

I can see this becoming a yearly tradition for teacher gifts for our family.

What do you normally do for teacher gifts?  If you're a teacher, what do you love to get? Or dread?

Two big days

The first big day this week:

Both Emily and Hope were very excited for their first day. Emily couldn't wait to see everyone and find out who her teacher would be. By the end of yesterday she declared Grade 2 to be the "best thing ever!" (although the protests I received trying to get her out of bed this morning would make you think the opposite). Hope was beside herself with excitement about starting full-day kindergarten. She started with just half her class and had a great day.

However.

She was back for her first "real" day today with her entire class (after having yesterday off so that the other half of her class could transition in). We arrived at the kindie yard to find every manner of helicopter parents milling around with their kids, many of them videotaping their kids... doing what? looking confused? waiting for their teacher? Now that makes for some riveting home movies!

Anywho, Hope didn't have any idea who these people were, she only saw one kid she recognized and, to make the whole situation a lot worse, her teacher wasn't in the yard. The only teachers were a myriad of ECE teachers that she didn't know. She went in, became a deer in headlights and burst into tears. And this is a kid who was jumping out of her pants to get to school every day last year and never cried once.

I stayed with her as long as I could, delivered Emily to her yard (where Miss Sympathy kept asking me what Hope's problem was... I do not see a career for her that would require a bedside manner of any kind), and then raced back to Hope to fulfill my promise of seeing her again before she went inside. I was happy to find that Mrs. B was outside, the bus carrying all of her regular classmates from last year had arrived and she was holding the door for her class. I caught her attention, blew her a kiss, wiped away a few tears (my own, not hers) and came home.

Parenting can really break your heart.


But, now onto the second big day this week:

Where does a newly-turned five-year-old want to have her breakfast? Cora's, of course!

John was able to clear the decks yesterday to celebrate with us over breakfast. Emily however was at school. "Not fair!"

Henry didn't give a rip that it was Hope's birthday. Just leave me to my melon, woman!

Last night we celebrated with Emily and dear friend, Anna, along with spaghetti and cupcakes. The big party happens on Saturday.

Not sure if she really likes birthdays though.

Most of yesterday was spent doing a few Girl Guide-related errands and then baking the cupcakes before we got Emily from school. As we left a local school where I went to hang a poster, Hope turned to me and said: "Um, I think you're forgetting something." Me: "What?" Hope: "I think you're forgetting that it's my birthday because we're just doing regular stuff." Priceless. This followed a not-so-gracious response to her birthday gift in the morning, which was one Barbie (she got her big gift, a scooter, in the spring): "Well, I was hoping there would be a lot more Barbies in this bag. Oh well, I'll get more from my friends this weekend."

This kid is a classic (and although it was pretty funny, I did also have a talk with her about greediness and graciousness).

Dreading the most important meal of the day

Before I started having to pack lunches for school, I had heard (from several reliable sources) that packing school lunches was attune to having your eyeballs pried out with a teaspoon.

I haven't found it bad at all but I think that is because I have a child with a very wide range of tastes and they all fall under the heading of "healthy".

But do you know what I despise making lately? Breakfasts! I find it absolutely loathsome. Most likely that is because, this week at least while I've either nursed other people's colds or my own, my grocery shopping and bread-baking has been sub-par. Every morning I wake up to find no bread in the house, apple but no other fruits that would be smoothie-worthy, eggs but no bacon (or bread as I just mentioned) or no time (or desire) to make pancakes.

And I'm looking it in the face tomorrow morning as well. I will likely be up early making muffins or pancakes.

And packing a lunch.

Hope's first day at preschool

To say Hope was excited to go to her first day of preschool WITHOUT MUMMY would be an understatement of mythic proportions. The photo evidence:


There were no tears; I think she may have given me a token wave and then she was off. There was a tiny bit of hesitation when she went in the play yard and didn't see her friend Elias immediately but then she saw all the things to do and I think her hesitation changed to "what do I play with first?"

John did the pick up and the only small issue was that it wasn't me there and I had forgotten to tell her it would be Daddy picking her up. She seemed to recover quickly however.

And where was I? I was at Emily's school picking her up from her first day of SK. One thing I absolutely love about Emily is how she greets you when she is excited to see you. She reserves the best of these greetings for Omi but I got a pretty good one today. She saw me, squealed, ran at me and literally jumped onto me (which I was luckily prepared for). I started crying. I really missed her today and I was happy to see that she was so happy after her first day and that she was happy to see me.

She had a great day. She loved her teacher Mrs. K and her worries about not knowing other kids were quickly put to rest when Mrs. K introduced her to everyone and had Emily introduce herself. She was busy doing fun things all day including a trip to the library and gym outside. (They get gym everyday! Okay, so every other week they're only there for two days but still.)

She can't wait until Tuesday when she is back and Hope is already asking when she goes to preschool next.

I'm glad we're going to the cottage this weekend to keep them distracted!

First day of school

Today is Emily's first day of Senior Kindergarten (SK). Waterloo schools (most of them) do full-day kindergarten alternating days, which is a confusing way to say that she attends on Tuesdays, Thursdays and every other Friday. Other kids go Mondays, Wednesdays and every other Friday. This is a not-so-great way to save on bus money, making things more difficult for teachers and students alike. Mrs. K, Emily's new teacher, told me this morning she would much prefer the "old" way of half-day every day. I know we really liked it last year in Ottawa and I'm glad Hope will be going back to that when she starts JK next year back at home.

No matter, I think Emily will have a great year. Mrs. K seems very nice and Emily was characteristically enthusiastic this morning, asking me about 10 times starting at 7:30 if it was time to leave yet.

This year we get to walk to school which is wonderful. I love the charm of walking to school. There are so many treasures to discover and pick up along the way! I did it up until Grade 9 and I wished Emily had that chance last year. I will love walking her to school this year with Hope running along behind.

Because Emily is there for full days, she has to take a lunch. Eek! Packing a lunch! I really wanted to avoid this until Grade 1. And there is a snack too of course. Today she headed off with a fruit/coleslaw salad, two plums, a piece of lemon square (thanks, Sara!), an apple, a rice pudding and water.

Yes, she requested the fruity coleslaw. I made it last night, packed her whole lunch and then realized at 6:00 this morning that I left her lunch out all night long. With mayonaisey coleslaw and rice pudding. I repacked the lunch at 7:00 with fresh COLD food. And an ice pack.

She wasn't teary at all (I didn't expect her to be), she was very excited and didn't seem too worried that she didn't know anyone. There are 4 other new SK kids in her class so she isn't the only newbie.

I hope she has a great day. Later today my wee Hope goes to her first drop-off preschool. Mummy may have a heart attack.

I'm not sure how she handles the pressure of being 4

Emily is really coming along with her reading. It is truly amazing and inspiring to watch the work and systems of Mrs. B, her teacher, translate into Emily actually being able to sound out words. Each week she brings home a different book that she is supposed to try and read with a parent. Today she read the whole thing to me with no help. She had to sound out a couple of words. The rest she knew by sight.

Me: Emmy, you're doing so well with your reading. I think you'll be reading really, really well by the end of summer holidays!

Emily: And I'll be so stressed out!

Our first school Christmas concert

Yesterday afternoon was Emily's first school Christmas concert. It was simply billed as the Kindergarten Concert, understandably, as Emily's class is so wonderfully multicultural, at least half of the kids being Muslim. The songs focused on winter, hibernation, bears and gingerbread - all themes they've explored recently. It was everything I hoped for and more, with that perfect kindergarten moment of one kid stealing the show.

That kid wasn't mine.

Emily's usual modus operandi in situations like this was in full play. She sat without moving, eyes glued to Mrs. B, singing really well but not doing too many actions to the songs. She was just so intent on singing and listening. She was very serious through it all. She's always been very serious in these kind of situations. If you didn't know better, you'd think she was scared or unhappy but no, she's just really focused. She was having a great time.

Not quite as good a time as her little friend Rebecca though. Rebecca is enthusiasm personified and I love it. Let me give you two videos to show you Rebecca's influence on the group. The first video, you'll notice they are all very serene. In the second video, Rebecca picks it up and the crowd follows. It was a great, great moment.

I laughed, in spite of myself.







The concert followed with a party in the Kindergarten room. It was really nice to have all the families together celebrating our kids and their achievements so far. At the end of the day, when it was time to go, Emily, the creature of habit and full-on bus-lover, insisted on taking the bus home. Since we're only a few minutes away, I decided to let her have that and not argue about it at all. And so, we left her there to climb aboard the bus.

This and that

It's been quiet in this space. You know why. Bake, bake, bake around here. It's going well but this week is my busiest so I will likely maintain a bloggy silence for a while.

However, I will have a post up for tomorrow as I'm part of Mom Central and was asked to review a meatball recipe that I will post for What's Cooking Wednesday tomorrow.

Today is a big day for Emily and for me. Today is her first school concert. The Kindergarten kids are performing for parents/grandparents etc in the library today at 1:30 and I am so excited to see her up there. I fully expect to be weepy and hope I won't be the only one. I get very emotional when I see Emily successfully doing something new. I can't explain it but I also know that I'm not in a minority when it comes to this. Shan has talked about it herself with her daughter a few times.

Hope's sleep in the big bed has improved. She's sleeping great at night and in the day, if I stay in the room until she is asleep, then she'll nap. I hope to be able to start to sneak out before she falls asleep. For now, I bring a book light and something to read.

And now, a sink full of baking dishes awaits me upstairs.

The Griswald Family Christmas continues. This time with mouth injuries.

The weekend started on a huge high for me. On Friday morning I had my first ever parent-teacher interview. Without patting Emily on the back too ferociously, it was a huge love-in. In Mrs. B's words: "Emily is a delight to have in the class. We all just love her so much." I almost wept right there. Not that I was expecting much different, to be honest. If a kid loves to go to school as much as Emily does, chances are she is doing really well there, having a great time, and is being shown a lot of praise and love from her teacher(s).

She is doing really well in all of the usual kindergarten stuff: writing and phonetics and playing well with others and participating. Apparently she is the kid that Mrs. B turns to if no one else has the answer. She said it is great to have a student like that in the class, the one you can count on. That was nice to hear. However, my favourite part was this: Mrs. B noted that Emily has a "strong sense of justice." I had to laugh and tell her that that is much more diplomatic than the way we put it: bossy, mother-hen, battle-axe. Mrs. B said that she keeps Emily in check but has to laugh when Emily is telling the other kids to listen or get in line or clean up.

So, that day was a good one.

On Saturday, as per our 25 days of Christmas instructions, we went to get a Christmas tree. Emily wasn't herself. She looked a bit pale and was tired from the get-go. We drove south of the city to Thomas Tree Farms. It was beautiful. The snow was lightly falling; we were taken out to the field on a tractor-drawn wagon; we wandered through the trees looking for the perfect one; Emily cried and complained the whole time. It kind of sucked. Hope had a great time though and loved it all.



We headed back with our tree. John went to load it on the car while we had our free hot chocolate and homemade cookies. Emily spilled hers. She cried. Finally we headed to the mecca: the playground. I thought this might turn things around. I was sooooo wrong.

Emily had been whining wanting to go there the whole time. Emily took her first go down the slide, took a step away from the bottom, hit shear ice and her feet went out BEHIND her, her teeth, chin and lip hit the ice. I grabbed her right away, scooped her up and saw the blood pouring our of her mouth and skin lodged between her top front teeth. It was yet another moment when my heart was in my throat. I couldn't have stopped it from happening but I wish I could turn back time at that moment. Her teeth were all there, thankfully, but it was awful. She was in a lot of pain, crying terribly and Hope was about to come shooting down the slide. I grabbed the closest mother, who was a bit shell-shocked from watching all of this and asked her to catch Hope and escort her off the treacherous playground. We then walked to the car as quickly as we could and I nursed Emily out of her tears, out of her snowsuit and into her car seat where she fell asleep. The poor girl. Not only was she under-the-weather, now she also had a serious mouth injury and was caked in blood. She has a terrible scab on her lip and has only started to eat again tonight when we bribed her with her favourite food: pizza.


Getting the tree had the potential to be one of those perfect family days but it turned into one of those should-have-been-perfect-but-of-course-it-wasn't kind of days that are inevitable when you have two kids under the age of 5. Next year John and I might leave the kids with someone else and make a date of it. Or maybe we'll just go to Ikea.

Things got better that night when we decorated the gingerbread house. It was good fun and the girls sailed into the evening on a sugar high.


On the Hope front, it was a big weekend for our littlest family member. On Sunday afternoon, John took apart the crib and put together her big girl bed. She was beside herself excited. Of course, it took me until 8:45 to get out of her room but miraculously she stayed in bed all night and even napped in there today (a downright miracle; I thought she would never stay in the bed during the day but she surprised me again). Tonight was better. All was quiet by 8:30.


Today we had a great day. We put the tree up and decorated it. We played Christmas music. We were all happy. I hope it lasts beyond today and Emily doesn't get too much attention tomorrow due to her lip. That would make things difficult for her.


And now, onto more cookie baking. I've actually had to stop taking orders for Christmas because I can't handle anymore and still enjoy time with the girls. I have 23 orders to complete by Christmas Eve! Amazing! I've decided to only accept new pie or tourtiere orders now for Christmas and start accepting New Year's orders (and beyond). I never expected this kind of response. Now I have to figure out how to repitch things for post-Christmas.

And how was your weekend?

As clarification

For those of you who below commented that you would have ordered the photos or thought they were pretty good, I realize now that the detail of the photos didn't show up well in the scan. Also, if you haven't met Emily in person or seen her in a long time, you also don't realize what she's doing there. She doing her odd posed smile. Here are instructions to replicate: place the very tips of your front top teeth on the very tips of your bottom front teeth. That is the smile she's got there. Of course she's cute. She's always cute. But that smile is weird. I love her, I tell her all the time how awesome she is but I'm not paying $15 for a set of photos where she's smiling like she just floated an air biscuit.

I kinda just thought it was really funny. The retakes will likely turn out the same. Yes, she'll still be cute but I'll have to think hard about whether that kind of funny and cute is worth $15.

School photo or sly spy standing in for my daughter?

Emily had her school photo taken a couple of weeks ago and brought it home on Friday. When I got home from my class that afternoon John said "Wait till you see Emily's photo. Try not to laugh in front of her."

Emily has this habit of putting on this odd stacked-teeth smile when she sits for a posed photo.


Her odd photo-smile comes naturally apparently. I worked hard on mine at the same age.

I specifically remember my mum trying to get me to smile "normally" which of course I demanded I was already doing. Similar to what Emily told me this morning when I told her we were having her photos retaken. "But the man told me to do that with my teeth!"

So, we're retaking the photos. I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that they'll turn out exactly the same. Oh well. At least she can show it to her kids one day after they come home with their first school photo looking like an incognito Maxwell Smart or a very irked librarian, continuing a long-standing family tradition.

Lip gloss, best friends and my mixed feelings

I've reached a point in my child's short educational life that I thought would come a lot later: I'm a little concerned about the influence of another kid on her.

I really thought that would come later than Junior Kindergarten. At this point, I assumed they would pretty much all be the same and Emily wouldn't be absorbing too much from the other kids, mainly because they have so little time to talk about things outside the classroom.

I'm so naive.

On Thursday, Emily wore her new blue rain boots to school since the ground was pretty wet from rain earlier in the day. At the end of the day she piped up out of the blue "N realized my boots are boy boots." I said "You're boots aren't boy boots, Emily. Anyone can wear blue. I'm wearing a blue sweater. Hope wears blue all the time and we aren't boys." Emily's response was perfect "I'm going to tell N she's wrong."

N, by the way, is, from what I can tell, Emily's current closest friend in her class. N is in the Senior Kindergarten half of the class and from what Emily says, they play together all the time. N sends home princess pictures every day with Emily that N coloured for her the night before (rather cute, I know). Emily doesn't really feel like colouring pictures for N. I asked. Ooh, bitch slapped.

Anyway, on Friday, Emily walked in the house and said "I have makeup on!" And you know what, she did. Lip gloss anyway. Sparkly, shiny lip gloss. That's more make up than I wear 95% of the time. I said "Wow, you do. Where did you get that?" "N gave it to me." I went into my makeup-is-for-grownups speil. John kept giving me the eye to ensure I didn't put N in a bad light but I admit it was hard not to say STAY AWAY FROM N.

I know that seems like an over-reaction but something is just rubbing me the wrong way and here is what I've come up with: N is clearly into girly things, things Emily has so far mostly stayed away from and that is something, I realize now, that makes Emily so extra special for me (aside from the obvious fact that she's my daughter). I love that Emily doesn't show much attention to princesses, makeup, fancy dresses (although she does love dresses), fancy hair dos, etc etc etc. I'm not saying she has no interest in these things. She has a little. But only a little. She is much more interested in running around outside, playing store, helping cook and bake, doing crafts, playing soccer or golf, collecting leaves, reading books. You get the idea. However, she is also susceptible to influence and if her current friend is into something, she'll want to get into it too, at least to a point.

In the end, John and I told her it isn't healthy to share lip gloss with another person because of germs. She got that. I also told her I'd get her some of her own. I found some Burt's Bees Lip Balm that goes on clear but looks pink in the tube because of the pomegranate that's in there. The perfect dupe. She LOVES it. However, I've demanded that she stops calling it her makeup and refers to it as lip balm. So far she is complying.

My real uneasiness is coming from the fact that N is swinging my daughter, my amazingly insteresting and cool daughter into things that I personally find less interesting and less cool. That's personal preference, I know. And I also know I'm trying to influence her to my way of seeing the world and I see the irony there. But damn it, I'm her mother and that's my right after 20-odd hours of labour, isn't it?

Of course, I also realize that trying to make her think that her mum's views are cool and interesting is probably a mistake because that won't work for long. It won't be long until she's thinking I'm a middle-aged loser who doesn't know what she's talking about. So, I don't want to be pushy about all this. I just want her to come up with the realization that these kinds of things like princesses, clothes and makeup don't matter in the big picture. There are way more interesting things to spend your time doing, playing and reading about.

Man, I really never thought I'd be struggling with these weird feelings 6 weeks into JK.

Am I crazy? Should I just let it play out and not worry about it? I haven't said any of this to Emily of course and won't. But I'm struggling with it a bit and wanted to hear what you all thought.

Am I over-reacting? Probably. When I read back over the post, it sure sounds like I am but at the same time outside influences are probably the things we worry about most when it comes to putting our kids in school. How do you or will you deal with it?

Edited to add: Okay, I've taken a breath, talked to my good friend, Shan, and realized what I knew before: this is not a big deal and I need to chill out. There are far worse things she could be doing or being exposed to. I'm not normally prone to insanity about things that are fairly insignificant but hey, every mother gets her chance. Today was mine.

The end of a big week

The first week is now complete in Emily's school career. One week down, only 559 to go until she graduates from Grade 12.

Her first week went remarkably well. Not once did she say she didn't want to go or seem slighly less enthusiastic than that first day picture portrays. She was that excited every. single. day.

That's a lot of emotion to have coursing through a little body.

And the result was a few end-of-the-day meltdowns. As such, we've changed up the nighttime routine slightly. Dinner ends and it is straight to the bath (if it is a bath night). The result is that if a meltdown happens and she needs to go to bed, well, at least the bath is already done and she can go straight there without being a super-dirty bird the next day.

I'm feeling the transition too. Our days are different now. Emily gets on the bus at 11:50 each morning which means we have limited time to do anything in the morning and lunch prep has to start by 11:00 at the latest. It is definitely changing the routine and morning dynamic. But, I'm getting used to it. The end result is that we're at home more in the mornings. That's not a bad thing.

I do look forward to tomorrow though. Nowhere that we have to go. No bus to meet. No snack to pack. Should be a nice break.

I no longer have complete control of her universe

Day 1 of Project Go To School is complete. There was total excitement. There was a hurried lunch. There were introductions to new friends and neighbours. There were unexpected tears.

The tears were mine and they were indeed unexpected. From Emily there was only unbridled enthusiasm for every little thing that had anything to do with getting to, being at or coming home from school.

Emily's bus comes at 11:58. We're required to be out there at 11:53. Lunch has to happen before that which makes morning activities rushed, difficult and probably stressful although this morning wasn't thankfully. We went to the library, which is a very quick bike ride. Luckily, I had leftovers from last night's supper that I was able to put on the table in 3 minutes flat. Good thing too otherwise I would have been cooked since I walked in the door from the library at exactly 11:19 am.

I'd better buy a watch.

When lunch was done and I started the motions to go out the door, Emily, to whom I was applying sunscreen at the time, couldn't keep her feet on the floor. Which made the whole sunscreen application thing a little challenging.

We went outside and took the required First Day of School Ever Photo.


I think her enthusiasm is evident. You can actually see her about to jump out of her skin.

We walked to the bus stop. Actually, we walked to the end of the street and looked both ways in an attempt to find someone who knew what they were doing because I definitely did not. The bus driver left me a message a week ago saying the pick up was at the end of our street but over the past couple of years I've seen parents and their kids standing willy-nilly all over the sidewalks. It's never been clear where the stop is. I saw a mother and kids standing near our mailbox area. She confirmed I was in the right place. Thankfully, she'd done this before and was able to educate the newbie. Her little boy, Mohammed, is in Emily's class.

Emily was thrilled, as was Mohammed, to have a new friend even before the bus arrived. I pushed down the feelings of bad neighbour-ness when I realized they live DIRECTLY ACROSS THE STREET FROM US and I really didn't know them or even recognize them. I didn't know she had three kids. I still don't know her name.

You know, I really like our street but I could only name maybe three families who live on it. First names only. That's sad. That's big city. Where I grew up, a small, rural town in the Niagara Region, and I was only a kid at the time, I could name a bunch of people on our very long road. Why can't I do that now? I'm not a hermit. I generally like people. Maybe it's my neighbours. Maybe they're the hermits. In any case, I'm going to make an effort to change that. Not sure how. Perhaps stalking will work. I honed my skills today as you'll soon find out.

Anywho. The bus pulled up. The jumping started again. The door opened, the driver checked off Emily's name and she was up the stairs and in the front seat without a kiss, hug or barely a look behind her.

Bye-bye mum, you are so yesterday's news.

As she climbed those stairs something happened that really surprised me. My lip started to quiver. I couldn't have spoken without my voice cracking. My girl was going to school and I wasn't going with her. I no longer would know how she was spending every minute of the day. Yes, she's done drop-off preschool programs but this is different. I won't be talking to her teacher at the end of every class, asking how she did or what she loved. She'll be coming home and, like today, won't remember most of what happened or what she did. For two and a half hours a day, she's someone else's. That's what hit me at that moment. And I didn't expect it. I still feel sad about it.

And then I became the stalker. But so did Mohammed's mum so at least I had company.

I drove to the school, parked a few metres away where I could easily see the whole scene. I watched the bus sitting there with doors closed. Mrs. B. approached, the doors opened and each student was let off into her care. She took them all into the little Kindergarten play yard (there were only 7 of them) and gave them a tour and the rules about not going beyond the fence (or so I gathered from her gestures). And then, she led them all inside in a nice line. I cried through the whole thing. Not just a quivering lip. Not just a cracking voice. I had big tears and some shaking shoulders. I drove away.

I met the bus (in the wrong place turns out) and welcomed home one of the most excited new students I have ever seen. Her first words were "Mummy, I had so much fun!" A few more exclamation marks would not be exaggerating her tone in any way. She had a big smiley face taped to her shirt that said "Kindergarten makes me smile." Uh, yeah. That's for sure.

In her bag I found a little paper that said: Quiet as a mouse award goes to Emily W. who was as quiet as a mouse going into school today. I'm willing to bet she was quiet most of the time. Taking everything in. Observing the other kids.

Here is what I was able to glean about Day 1:
- you have to take a paper clip to be able to use any of the centres. If there's no clips left, you can't use that centre (because there are already the requisite number of kids there) and you have to go to a different area. I love these Kindergarten teacher tricks.
- she ate snack on the big square but didn't have enough time to eat her carrot sticks.
- Krishtika didn't remember her from preschool.
- Mohammed is her new friend.
- she forgot to give Mrs. B her glue sticks.
- the soap dispenser was broken
- Mrs. B read Spot's First Day of School
- Emily's favourite thing is still the play house.
- she played a computer game that had something to do with a cow.

She was so ridiculously tired tonight that when that inevitable meltdown came, I agreed to skip the bath and put her right to bed. The next couple of weeks will be a hard adjustment, getting her through supper to bedtime with minimal crying. Once that adjustment time has passed I think we'll have a very, very happy kid who is loving school, making new friends, and a happier mummy who is more comfortable with giving up some control over her kid's life. And probably making better use of my time with her because it is little more limited.

And how did I spend those two hours away from her? Did I put my feet up while Hope slept? Enjoy a glass of wine? A cuppa tea? Perhaps a good book, some knitting, some sleeping?

That would have been nice if my second born would have slept. Which she didn't do yesterday either.

If she is dropping her nap there is going to be a lot of swearing round these parts. Perhaps some Valium as well. That would be just too nasty. Too mean of this universe.

It can't be, can it?

On her game

The intake interview with Emily's JK teacher, Mrs. B, went great. Emily was just about jumping out of her shoes to get into that classroom. When Mrs. B came to get us from the waiting area, Emily starting jumping. Mrs. B remarked that clearly someone was excited about starting school. It was a good first impression.

I found it really cool how Mrs. B asked Emily to do things that seemed to Emily to be mostly normal things but really were a way for Mrs. B to assess how far along Emily is with reading, colours, shapes etc. The first thing she asked Emily to do was to find her name tag in the cloak room area. Then she got to pick a cubby hole and Mrs. B taped the name tag to the cubby. Then Emily had to picked a coloured laminated card (and tell Mrs. B the colour she chose) and a sticker to put on the card. The card then went in her cubby. It will be her sticker card for all the stickers she'll get over the next while. Thank you thank you thank you. I'm so tired of peeling stickers off the wood floor in our house.

After a quick explanation of the cubby hole and what she's expected to do when she arrives (changing shoes, hanging up backpack, sitting in bottom of cubby to show she's ready), we went into the class for the big tour.

First we sat on the coloured square on the carpet, something they'll always do when they first arrive. Emily had to tell her the colours of the lines making up the square and then identify the shapes inside the big square. She nailed it. Emily has known all this stuff for a long time, easily identifying colours by the time she was two but if she is in a new situation with a stranger she has the tendency to freeze up and claim she doesn't know things just to get out of having to talk. Not yesterday. She was totally on her game and pretty comfortable from the start. I think she was fuelled by excitement.

After that it was a tour of all the stations and then Mrs. B and I sat down and talked while Emily drew a picture and played in the playhouse (her favourite thing there, she tells me).

I think Emily will do really well there. I think she'll love it. I think, from what I learned in a short interview, that Mrs. B is a great teacher for Emily. I think we might have some issues with getting Emily on the bus. It's the only thing she says she's nervous about. I've told her she doesn't have to take it the first day if she doesn't want to.

Tomorrow she goes for her first real class.

How did we get here so fast?

My fingers can't move as fast as my brain

And my brain doesn't really move that fast.

I have all these posts lined up in my brain like a little desktop file organizer. And yet, here we are at the end of the summer with only a post or two a week. And one was just suggesting a movie.

Not stellar.

I haven't posted about:

how I'm a relatively crappy friend sometimes leaving my two close friends Greg and Tamara (hi T, I'm still so sorry!) in the lurch in Orangeville with no directions to our cottage.

how Emily barfed two nights ago and why you'd care

how Emily starts school this week

Let's start there.

Today at 11:40 am we go for our "intake interview" with Emily's teacher. We met her at the Open House in the spring and she is, by first impression and reports from other parents, amazing. Her name will hereby be Mrs. B. She is one of those career Kindergarten teachers. She is about 50 I'd guess, has an enthusiastic, caring and generous approach to kids and parents (we arrived late to the Open House and she gave us a 20 minute tour of the classrooms and school on her own time) and yet you can tell (and I've heard) that she has high expectations of the kids and brings down the law when necessary. Just what Emily needs.

So, we meet her again in about an hour. She'll show Emily the class again, show her her cubby hole and we'll talk about Emily.

Emily is just a little excited. Like excited enough to ask me at 8:00 if it was time to go yet.

On Thursday she'll go back again for one "integrated start" day. This means that half the class goes on that day when she does (about 10 students). It will be a get to know you day and get to the know the routine day. She'll be able to take the bus that day.

The bus. We're eligible because we live too far away for a 4-year old to walk. She says she wants to ride it and it would be way easier for me since she goes to school right when Hope should be getting to bed in the afternoon but something about putting her on a school bus has me COMPLETELY FREAKING OUT. She's four. Four!

I plan to put her on the bus and then follow it with the car for at least a few days to make sure she isn't crying when she climbs off the bus.

I'm the stalker mummy.

Why I love the library

A few days ago, Emily asked me a question about bees that I couldn't answer. She wanted to know how they built hives. I seemed to remember that bees used saliva to build hives but I had no idea about honeybees and that was all she cared about in regard to bees. So, I suggested that next time we were at the library we get some books about bees.

The next day was our weekly trip to the library. I found three books for kids on honeybees. We have now read through each one multiple times. One of them is Emily's favourite bedtime "story."

Emily and I have both learned a lot about honeybees during the last few days. Did you know that the female worker bees do a dance for the other worker bees when they've discovered a new crop of flowers? The dance will tell the bees whether the flowers are within 300 feet of the hive (the circle dance) or further than 300 ft. The dance will convey where the flowers are in relation to the sun depending on the direction the bee dances. Did you know that each worker bee collects pollen from about 10,000 flowers each day? And that worker bees eventually die of exhaustion in their wings and legs and just fall out of the sky while flying and just die? And that during the life of a worker bee (about two months) all that pollen only adds up to about one tablespoon of honey?

Wow.

Emily is rather taken with the queen bee and the fact that her only job is to have babies (and mate with the drones although thankfully she hasn't actually asked me what that is yet. I wasn't prepared to have this conversation in the midst of a lesson about bees. Hmmm, I guess it makes sense though: bees, sex, probably where the whole lame term "birds and bees" came from.)

Our brief foray into the world of honeybees and beekeeping has reminded me how lucky we are to have a daughter who is so interested in the world around her and so genuinely excited about learning new things. This is going to be huge in her success in school next year and the years following, and in life in general. I'm so excited for her as a result and excited for us that we won't have to instill this in her. It's there naturally.

I am also reminded, as I am every time I walk into the place, how fortunate we are to have such a great library nearby and proud that I've made it such a big part of our lives. At age 3, Emily already knows where to go to find answers that we don't have to questions that she has.

Eventually, she'll go to the internet like the rest of us. Going to the library to find the answer to the bee question took me back to the days when that is what we all did. The World Book or Encyclopedia Britannica was the backbone of our public school projects and the library was the centre of our "research." In fact, in my family, we went to the library every Saturday to get books to read, for pure enjoyment, during the week. I'm glad that I've kept this alive with my kids and I hope that they will continue to use it for school projects as they get older, rather than only relying on the internet. There is still something much more satisfying about turning pages and reading words and pictures on paper, browsing through the stacks and talking to a librarian than typing a word in Google in isolation in the basement.

One of the best moments of yesterday was when we saw the life (and ultimate death) of bees in action. We went out onto the deck and saw a wasp laying on one of our chairs, dying. We were witnessing a worker bee (although not a honeybee, but the same action was taking place) dying due to exhaustion. At least, that's what we deduced. Emily was enthralled. Almost as much as I was.

Have I conveyed well enough how excited I am that she is excited about learning? I think it's because I get to learn, or relearn, along the way too. And that's what I loved about school.

And now I get to do it all over again. When do I get my new pencil case?