The last couple of weeks have been a bit of an eye opener for me as the mom of two lils in kindergarten. For the majority of the school year, I thought that I was doing pretty well. The lils made it to school most days before the bell, they are often overly prepared for the weather, and I hadn’t yet forgotten to include their lunches OR water bottles. Sure, I likely drive them more often then I should, and I have forgotten to call the school once or twice when one of them is sick, but all in all it’s not been too bad.

There has been a subtle shift of late, and I think that things are starting to slide. It started when I forgot to buy splash pants for Goose, and then didn’t find any for weeks. It started getting warm, and overly prepared for the weather morphed into sending the poor girl in her snowsuit up until mid-April, when the temperature was well above freezing and she was over-heating. Then the lils started competing to see who could reach me for hugs at the end of the day. The “winner” got their hug first, and the loser, well, lost it. The tears, the yelling, the crying, have become a daily occurrence. Their teachers look at me, confused as I am as to what is happening. Then I sent Goose to school in a dress that clearly needed something worn underneath it. It was a knit dress, and their were holes in the pattern. I thought that she was fine with nothing underneath, but I was so wrong, and those holes looked so large as she ran around the playground at pick-up.

I have been able to volunteer a few days a month in the lils’ classroom. It is great to see the them interacting with their peers, to get to know their classmates, and to help the teachers out a little bit. I like it, I know that the teachers appreciate it, and all of the lils seem to have fun when a parent comes in. Sadly, the last few visits I have made have ended with one or both of my lils behaving really badly. They don’t listen, disrupt the lessons, and try to get their classmates to follow them in their mischievous ways. The teachers know it is for my benefit, the lils have been warned that they can’t keep it up or there will be consequences, yet it continues. When Willy picked the lils up from school one night recently, he was told that I should not come in the next day, as it becomes too disruptive for all. The consequences they were warned of.

I’ll be allowed to come back in next month, but until then, I’ve been suspended from kindergarten.

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Woo talking. Goose, “Hey! I was about to talk and Woo started talking first. That’s interrupting!”

Me, “There was no kale in today’s veggie basket.”
Woo, “What???? Why not!?  Can you go get some now?!” (addict much?)

Goose accidentally pulls the curtain rod down in her room, at bedtime. She still has a blind, so I figure she will be fine. When I leave the room and turn the lights out she says, “Hey! Why is it so bright in here? I can’t sleep when it is this bright out!”

Tucking Woo in to bed one night, “Your breath smells like wine.” (that might have been a valid compliant)

One night this week the lils were presented with a nice steak, usually a family favourite in our mostly vegetarian house.  Goose took one look and cried, “But we haven’t had KD in a million days!”

Each night I call the lils to supper, reminding them to use soap.  Tonight Goose refused, angrily complaining, “I don’t need to use SOAP to wash my hands.”

When his milk was about to be poured into the same plain, low profile, bottom heavy, hard to spill glass that he uses every night, Woo cried out, “WAIT! I can’t drink my milk unless it’s in a fancy glass…”

Walking to school last week, Goose asked what the date was.  I told her, and she exclaimed, “AWW, I don’t have any APRIL underwear!”  The people who were jogging by at this exact moment found this to be particularly amusing.

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As the afternoon went on yesterday, I went about my routine as I always do.  I wanted the lils to see normal, even though I was not feeling it on the inside.  They didn’t need to know that I was upset, so I fed them their snack and talked about their day as I prepped the veggies for our stir fry.  I listened to the radio, because we always do, but I discretely turned it off to “hear them” every time the news came on.  They didn’t need to know what was going on.

There are terrible things that happen in the world every day, and I gloss over them too.  It was just a little harder yesterday. The bombs that were set off at the finish line for the Boston Marathon were a terrible thing; impossible to avoid, to hide because of the event, the location that was attacked.   The lils aren’t ready, I rationalized.

It was the cancellation of last night’s hockey game that forced me to tell them a bit about what happened.  They knew that there was to be a game, were hoping to be allowed to watch a few minutes of the first, or be called out of bed to see a goal for the Sens if they scored.  They would realize that something was up when there was no game, and would want to know more.  As I told them that there were some explosions in Boston, and that the game was cancelled to ensure that everyone was safe, I kept thinking that this was a silly reason to be telling them about this, that they would want to know more. In the end, they were disappointed about the game, but had no real questions about anything else.  Thankfully they had one more day where they were still in that safe little bubble where all is good in the world, and their biggest worry is that they have to wait a day to do something they enjoy.  It’s days like yesterday that I want to crawl inside that bubble with them.

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