Day One: So Far So Good

Jack's first day of school lasted an eternity. I worried obsurely all day about whether they were going to catch on to his nickname and was Jack going to be assertive enough to correct them when they called him John and would he feel lonely and were the other kids going to talk to him and would the cafeteria be scary and how was the school going to get him on the correct bus and how would he know when to get off. I waited for the bus in the drizzle with some other moms. It was 10 long minutes late. It stopped. He got off first. He was wearing a cheery bus sticker on his T-shirt saying "John, Bus 5" with "Jack" written on the side and a smiley face drawn on. His rain jacket still packed in the backpack, he grabbed my damp hand and looked up at me, smiling. "Hi, Mommy! It was FUN!"

He had a snack and talked about his day. He brought home some "homework," which involved drawing a picture that showed his favorite part of the day, and writing a sentence about it. He picked the bus ride, it being the most recent and the most adrenalin-producing, I guess. He wrote a simple declarative sentence that won't reveal his astonishing brilliance to his teacher, but it was grammatically correct, with no misspellings, anyway.

John and I got much more homework than Jack did, what with the forms they sent us to fill out, duplicating or even triplicating information we already have given them . . . . lots of recycling fodder, too, like the whole piece of paper dedicated to how the school uses Integrated Pest Management and another whole page dedicated to a statement saying that the school has contained asbestos successfully (the building was renovated last year). We also received a thick wad of Helpful Information and All Kinds of Volunteer Opportunities from the Home and School Association. The association is run by the usual suspects, the stay-at-home moms, the same ones I see at the pool, driving their kids to soccer camp, and at the book clubs. (There are other people in my town, including fathers and working moms. They must be the strangers I see on the weekends.)

Thank you, dear readers, for stopping by during the lull. Blogging season has resumed, so I'll be visiting you soon at your blog! Save a place for me.