Wednesday Morning Kindergarten Raw

Thanks to everyone for the encouraging words on behalf of my son in my last post. It’s stupid that I let a 6 year old girl inhabit so much of my brain during the day, but I can’t deny that she’s a throwback to particular girls of my youth that were nemeses of my day. I’m sure all this affects him much less than it has affected me, so I’m confident his self esteem is well intact. Today is his first official day in kindergarten and he was a little upset about things not being the same way as they were in preschool, but I’m sure after time he’ll adjust. Some of the children were crying yesterday at the open house, and he was nothing but eager to play with the other children. I don't think there is any time where he is not ready and eager to play. His teacher seems nice, albeit a little overwhelmed, and there was a fair share of running around and speaking up by a few loud kids. So, a typical kindergarten class---a little tears, a little sweat, a little running and a lot of talking. You know, mayhem.

As for the neighborhood, we’ve kept him near the house lately. He was a popular kid in preschool, so I’m sure all this nonsense with Diana has him totally confused. Let’s face it—he’s never been manipulated before. We had high hopes for him finding new friends once we moved to the new neighborhood and maybe we set the bar a little too high, which rubbed off on him. He’s been fairly protected most of his life in the shell of his own home since he didn’t go to daycare, so his emotions are raw and he’s very sensitive. We lived in a condo community where there were no kids and so this sort of neighborhood free play is a totally new concept to him. And he’s just outgoing and assumes the best in everyone. Like every 5 year old should be. So it’s like, welcome to the world---it sucks. We’ve moved on to better things like making fun of dad at the dinner table last night for being a professional wrestling fan and making up pretend matches in his basement when he was a kid. Nerd with a capital N.