First Day Of Kindergarten

Zona's first day of kindergarten dawned bright and early on August 25th, 6:30 to be exact. The tardy bell at "real" school rings at 8:00 a.m.- a pretty difficult concept for us, as I'm used to waking her up around 7:45.

For those of you who don't already know, Zona and I are night owls. It was a major accomplishment to have her asleep by 10 in the evening. The specter of trying to get Zona to rise by 6:30 had been looming all summer and I was dreading it (Not to mention that I would have to get up an hour earlier, too. EEK!) Somehow, we managed to get up and moving. So early, that we had to wait for the classroom door to open when we arrived. The classroom door finally opened and Zona took her seat (scoped out at Meet the Teacher Night the Thursday before.) We chatted for a while as other students and their parents were filing in and getting settled. She looked fairly comfortable and only slightly apprehensive. I decided it was time for me to go and gave her what I thought was going to be a final hug. At this point things went terribly awry...

Zona leapt from her seat and charged into the classroom doorway. She planted both feet firmly on the ground and announced "I'M NOT STAYING!!!!"

Hmmmm... how to handle this without calling attention? I used my best mother-muttering-under-her-breath voice, clenched teeth and all, to say "Zona get back in your seat." She yelled "NO!" and took off. Out the door, down the breezeway, and across a grassy knoll (TEXAS is rife with grassy knolls...) I am chasing her in sling-back high heels that are slipping off the back of my feet (why I did not jettison them I will never know, they were a definite hinderance), she's stopping every few feet to look back and challenge me to chase her further (she learned this from our cat, Lulu, who does the exact same thing) and I'm trying my damnedest not to start yelling at her in front of all the stragglers and school employees, including the principal! (Happy First Day of School to You, Too, Mr. Principal!) I finally catch her and have to pick her up and carry her back to her classroom.

She is red faced and openly weeping. The teacher's aide tries to get her engaged so I squat down to try to help. At this point, Zona gets me in a clinging choke hold from which I could not extricate myself. She's wrapped around me like a boa constrictor with her chin jutting into my voice box, all the while I'm squatted down teetering on some very ill-chosen shoes. In the end, it took three people to pull her off of me (teacher, teacher's aide, and the principal who is this big burly guy with a shaved head.) Once they got us separated, I was pretty much pushed out the door and the door was slammed in my face.

Once I was able to get oxygen circulating to my brain again (cried all the way to work), I knew she would be just fine and she was/is. She has received a "green stamp" every day, which means her behavior is great. (Color code system- green is good, yellow card means "slow down and consider your behavior", blue means "a time out of approx. 5 minutes", red card means "a call to parents or a visit to the principal's office"- yikes!) One would think green is normal, but apparently for first few days of kindergarten it is not. So, we are off to a great start. If you get a green stamp every day of the week, you get to choose a small "prize" from the barrel- high motivation for Miss Z.

We are very unhappy with our after school daycare choice but research is showing we do not have many options. Apparently, we have been very spoiled in our quality of care up to now. That is info for another time as I'm a bit rundown by getting up at 6 a.m. every day.

The other pic is a possum that lives in our back yard or somewhere around here and who makes a nightly feast of the cat food we have outside for the feral cat that lives in the backyard. Our backyard is part homeless animal soup kitchen and stray cat buffet.