School Days

During this morning's ritual crowding of the bathroom, in which all female Rowes were trying to use the toilet, brush our teeth, and tend to other matters at the same time, Julia got quite a kick out of the number of things that were accidentally dropped or knocked off of the counter as we were all crammed together in such a tiny space.  I finally moved into the kitchen to deal with my contact lenses, only to accidentally drop my lens case into the kitchen garbage.  At that point, Julia could not contain her incredulity over the sheer klutziness she was witnessing.

JULIA: What is going ON here today?  First you and Madeleine were knocking everything over, NOW you're dropping your contact case in the GARBAGE!?
ME: I guess I'm just a klutz.
JULIA: Mom, it's just like one day at school, when Emily accidentally threw the STAPLER in the garbage!  And then later on, I accidentally threw my SCISSORS in the garbage!  And then, I don't know if Yasmine was just trying to be like me, but then SHE dropped her scissors in the garbage!

Madeleine apparently misheard "Yasmine" as "Madeleine," because a few moments later she piped up with the following:  "Well Julia?  I wasn't THERE when I threw the scissors in the garbage."  (thoughtful silence)  "Julia?  Was it a DIFFERENT Madeleine that threw the scissors in the garbage?"

Good old Madeleine.  Totally with the program, as always.

Later in the morning, it was Julia who got to meet Madeleine's school friends, as we all headed over to the nursery school together.  I had been asked to come in to preschool and do a unit on musical instruments with the kids, including a show-and-tell of my various instruments from around the world.  In lieu of payment, the director suggested I leave my girls at school for the morning to participate in "Kids in the Kitchen," a cooking program that the school runs on Mondays, which is an extra cost beyond the regular preschool day.  The director was happy to include Julia in the program for the day, phrasing it as: "Well, I can only see Julia being a help."

That's because the director knows preschool Julia: obedient, very quiet, patient, and respectful.  The school had yet to see Shy-and-Therefore-Weirdo Julia, who had to mask her feelings of nervousness and out-of-placeness by loudly proclaiming things like this to every teacher and parent who attempted to speak to her: "I don't know WHY I talk like a BOY!"  I took her aside quickly to explain that the teachers were really counting on having big kid help from her, someone who could act as a baby-sitter or mother's helper, and luckily the message seemed to sink in; when a preschool boy asked me my name and I answered, Julia managed to contain herself and merely whispered into my ear: "No, your name is Quaw-Quee Clark."

Fortunately, once the shyness got out of her system, Julia truly was a big help, and the girls both loved the Kids in the Kitchen experience.  In fact, Julia was really bummed out to learn that they won't be doing this every Monday morning.  They got to take home leftover pound cake after the baking was done, so they've got tonight's dessert all mapped out for themselves already.

Unfortunately, despite our successful morning, we wound up being late to kindergarten drop-off this afternoon, thanks to Julia's last-minute need to poop and her subsequent dreamy singing while washing her hands, followed by the insistence on telling me things about her stuffed dog Fifi while slowly and distractedly putting on one boot and then the other. 

I guess you can't win them all!