Curriculum Night

Last night, Ethan and I attended Curriculum Night at Julia's school, which was a great opportunity for us to find out what the kindergarten kids are working on in school, what academic goals the teacher sets for the year, and what we parents can do at home to support the lessons the kids are getting in school.  Most exciting of all, for me, was browsing the kindergarten classroom, which, unlike the first day of school, now displays all kinds of work done by the current class of kids.  I enjoyed reading the "wish list" board, on which was displayed each child's wish for what the kids will learn in kindergarten.  Julia's wish was to learn to write more words, and she demonstrated this idea by drawing a picture of herself with words such as "swim," "love," and "stop" circling around her head.  The teacher also displayed the "All About Me" books the class had worked on, and we parents got to not only look through the books, but actually take our child's book home.  I thought you readers all might like a look at what Julia has to say about herself...

Cover Page

 First page

I'm guessing they didn't have a pink marker available, so Julia went for the closest shade she could get...

"She's S years old," Ethan remarked as we turned to this page.

I think she should have followed Madeleine's example and colored her whole hand in black.

Then came the last page, displaying a picture and description of what our child wants to be when (s)he grows up:

Wait.  A waitress!?!  There are a large number of careers I can plausibly see Julia choosing for her future, based on her varied interests.  Lead singer for "The Goldens," a pianist, a fashion model, an actress, a swimmer, a baby-sitter, a mother, and an author are but a few that come to mind.  I have no idea where the desire to be a waitress comes from.  I mean, she doesn't seem interested in serving even her own self.  This is the child that sits on the couch watching tv and yells to me, "MORE MILKIE, PLEASE?" without even bothering to get up and bring me her empty cup to refill.  This is also the child who leaves her empty cups and bowls on the windowsill, or the table, or the living room floor rather than bringing them to the sink when she's finished.  I truly cannot imagine what inspired her to choose a waitress for her future job.  In fact, I was so curious as to what spawned this idea that I felt compelled to ask her more about it.

ME: So, Julia, I was wondering.  What made you decide you want to be a waitress when you grow up?
JULIA: Well, I don't know...maybe just WATCHING other waitresses when we go places.

Well, that's a heck of a compelling argument.  There's not much I can say to counter that.

Madeleine came home from school with her own artwork today, a picture, in her own words, of her two teachers.  I had never noticed how much her teachers resemble Aly Raisman until I saw Madeleine's portrait:

One of her teachers filled me in on a little scrape Madeleine got on her chin today, due to a fall outside on the playground. This led to the teacher telling me all about Madeleine's day, including the fact that Madeleine ate two entire apples - which were intended for tasting purposes for the whole class - because she was so deeply into the apple tasting.  The teacher then informed me: "Madeleine is just...so...INCREDIBLY adorable."

While I will certainly not argue with the fact that my daughter is pretty darn adorable, I have to admit that the pause between the words "so" and "incredibly adorable" felt like the longest seconds of my life.  I sat there quickly running through Madeleine's various characteristics in my head, trying to imagine how to fill in the blank.  "Daring?"  "Klutzy?"  "Brazen?"  "Charismatic?"  "Spirited?"  "Wild and crazy?"  In my outpouring of utter relief upon hearing the teacher call her adorable, rather than some euphemistic term like "incredibly active," I unintentionally burst out with, "Oh, GOOD!"  Yes.  What a moronic response.  "Your daughter is adorable."  "Oh, good."  Not "thank you," not "oh, you're sweet to say so."  I had been bracing myself for something so very different that I could only express my sense of alleviation over Madeleine being called adorable.

Then Madeleine began putting her spitty mouth all over the beach ball globe in the classroom and pretending to blow it up, followed by a whining melt-down over not knowing where her empty juice box and Ziploc bags had gone to, so I decided it was time to sprint us on out of there.