how is this even possible?
N's first day of School was today.
It's so school-y. Look: a world map on the wall. Tiny little institutional chairs. Shelves with books and puzzles. An alphabet floor map and a teacher in sensible shoes. A chalkboard. In the hallway, she has a yellow half-height metal locker, and across the way is a dimly-lit echoey tile bathroom with short toilets and short sinks that just screams ELEMENTARY SCHOOL! from every corner.
In that photo, she's drawing a tree in brown marker. It has roots, and squiggly forking organic lines for branches. When we left, she was putting leaves on the tree with a green marker. This weekend, at regyt and novalis's wedding, she drew a picture of a pear on an index card. My baby! Old enough for self-directed representational art!
Across the table from her up there is a girl who also doesn't speak French at home. I've already forgotten her name, and her mom's name. I guess I'm like that. Her mom, though -- I introduced myself, because she had a big SLR camera and a nonstandard lens, and was taking a few pictures with it. She had that body language that said "I'm good at this, but I'm not taking 1000 pictures and I'm not going to be all camera-y at you." She had curly ponytailed hair and crinkly smiley eyes and I didn't hate her. She asked Natalie's name, and then introduced her to her daughter, and said, "you two will be learning French together." Yes, I guess they will.
The school was a lot whiter than I'm used to, but not entirely so, which helped me relax a bit. There were lots of different languages and accents in the hallways, too -- English and French and even Spanish. She clung to me for a while but eventually sat down and got absorbed in drawing her tree and then barely noticed when we left.
Doesn't she still look like this?
I'm sitting here in my chair at work practically vibrating. I want the end of the day to come and I want to go pick her up and hear about everything right now. I'll wait, though; the end of the day will come soon enough, and then the end of the week, and the month. Will she start speaking French at home, to me? To dilletante? How long until she corrects my usage?
(How long until she doesn't want snuggles first thing in the morning?)
((I hope she's okay. I admit that a tiny part of me hopes it's a little hard AND a little good today, so that I can snuggle her and comfort her and share the excitement with her.))
My baby! So big. Not a baby at all, really. When does that part sink in?
It's so school-y. Look: a world map on the wall. Tiny little institutional chairs. Shelves with books and puzzles. An alphabet floor map and a teacher in sensible shoes. A chalkboard. In the hallway, she has a yellow half-height metal locker, and across the way is a dimly-lit echoey tile bathroom with short toilets and short sinks that just screams ELEMENTARY SCHOOL! from every corner.
In that photo, she's drawing a tree in brown marker. It has roots, and squiggly forking organic lines for branches. When we left, she was putting leaves on the tree with a green marker. This weekend, at regyt and novalis's wedding, she drew a picture of a pear on an index card. My baby! Old enough for self-directed representational art!
Across the table from her up there is a girl who also doesn't speak French at home. I've already forgotten her name, and her mom's name. I guess I'm like that. Her mom, though -- I introduced myself, because she had a big SLR camera and a nonstandard lens, and was taking a few pictures with it. She had that body language that said "I'm good at this, but I'm not taking 1000 pictures and I'm not going to be all camera-y at you." She had curly ponytailed hair and crinkly smiley eyes and I didn't hate her. She asked Natalie's name, and then introduced her to her daughter, and said, "you two will be learning French together." Yes, I guess they will.
The school was a lot whiter than I'm used to, but not entirely so, which helped me relax a bit. There were lots of different languages and accents in the hallways, too -- English and French and even Spanish. She clung to me for a while but eventually sat down and got absorbed in drawing her tree and then barely noticed when we left.
Doesn't she still look like this?
I'm sitting here in my chair at work practically vibrating. I want the end of the day to come and I want to go pick her up and hear about everything right now. I'll wait, though; the end of the day will come soon enough, and then the end of the week, and the month. Will she start speaking French at home, to me? To dilletante? How long until she corrects my usage?
(How long until she doesn't want snuggles first thing in the morning?)
((I hope she's okay. I admit that a tiny part of me hopes it's a little hard AND a little good today, so that I can snuggle her and comfort her and share the excitement with her.))
My baby! So big. Not a baby at all, really. When does that part sink in?