Piper’s new kindergarten teacher is a keeper. When Piper grew bored of coloring in her behavior report every day with the same boring green crayon, she let her color the square rainbow. “You’re in charge of you,” Mrs. Adams told her, “you know if you behaved, don’t you?” Piper did.
When I met Mrs. Adams for the first time, I gushed about how glad we were that she’d shown up for her second day, too. My standards are now that low after Dear Kindergarten Teacher and Help Wanted.
Piper declared Mrs. Adams to be a good hugger. “You kind of just fall into her. I think she’s hugged a lot.”
Mrs. Adams had a positive report, too. “Oh, Piper!” she said. “I get her. I really do.”
The hardest part of kindergarten so far is the schedule. Piper complains that all that school stuff cuts into her play time. Recess is never long enough either. So she sneaks in moments of play wherever she can.
There are horse figurines and rocks scattered on the bathroom vanity where Piper played while brushing her teeth. She kneels by her bedside and plays with her stuffed animals while I braid her hair. Toys aren’t allowed at the breakslowfast table, but Piper likes to make her vitamins talk to each other. “It’s time to leave for school!” is always met with “But I was playing!” You can’t watch screens in our house before school either (I’m a real meanie, aren’t I?) so My Little Ponies and Luke Skywalker help Piper put on her shoes. There are also her imaginary friends and the voices in her head to contend with, too.
Bath time and/or her shower necessitates an entire bowl full of plastic jungle animals. The bowl serves as a floating raft in case there is a flood. There is often a flood. Whenever Piper climbs into her booster seat in the car, she first has to remove an army of toys that she left there from the last play session. When reading, Piper has to have representative “guys” to act out the story that’s happening on the page. It takes us a long time to get through a page.
So Saturday morning when Piper wakes up at the crack of dawn and asks “Can I play?” I get to say yes and go back to sleep.
Every morning Sissy and Piper walk to school together. They hold hands on their commute. I watch them from a bench on our front porch. You can, too. They’re the ones at the front of the line. You’ll spy Piper’s blue tutu.
Then they walk home together after school. Sissy’s teacher dismisses her first. Piper waits in the kindergarten classroom for her pickup. I’m waiting on the same bench at home for their return, but I can imagine the moment when they see each other again. It’s not a chore they have to do together. Sissy doesn’t think it’s a burden. They enjoy walking to school together and walking home together. They always hold hands. There will be a day, I’m sure, when they won’t. And it will come sooner than I’m ready for, but for now, for this moment, this is the commute, and I’m savoring it.
One afternoon Sissy was a few minutes late picking up Piper. Her art teacher held them over the time to clean up. It worried Piper. “I thought you forgot me,” she told Sissy over their afternoon snack.
“I’d never forget you, P. I was just late,” Sissy explained.
“But I thought you weren’t coming,” Piper said.
Sissy grabbed Piper’s hand. “You’re the most important thing to me in that whole school. I’ll always come get you. I won’t forget. How could I forget you?”
For Back to School Night, Piper drew a picture of her family. Here we are:
Piper’s wearing her blue sparkly outfit from the first day of school. That big black thing in the corner is the dog we don’t have but Piper wishes we did. I dearly hope that other blob playing with a purple airplane is not another child but it sure looks like one to me. Her dad clearly needs to shave. We’re standing under a rainbow. Of course.
We have a reader, folks. A reluctant one, but the Piper is definitely reading. I’ve caught her a few times. She read the screen at the drive up ATM from the back seat. She read a sign out her car window today, too. And this afternoon she read me her favorite Dora the Explorer book from start to finish.
Every single word. I had to bribe Piper with a chocolate chip granola bar and a promise to reread the Junie B. Jones Halloween book out loud, but it was worth it. She was quite proud of herself. Smeared with chocolate and beaming. The plot is a total nail biter. Is the baby crab going to find his mami crab? Will he give her the shell necklace? How will we get over those snapping clams? The tension is almost too much.
Spoiler Alert: the baby crab makes it to Shell Island just fine and Dora is finally free of crabs. Whew.
Piper’s been her own little cheering squad lately. The girl’s got self esteem of steel. “And the crowd goes wild!” has become her catch phrase. I’m not sure where she picked it up but it seems here to stay. Wherever Piper goes and whatever task she accomplishes, that crowd is right there waiting.
This afternoon Piper buckled herself into her booster seat. All by herself. Then she shouted “And the crowd goes wild!” and gave herself a high five.
I heard a “And the crowd goes wild!” from the bathroom. I didn’t investigate.
She clears her plate from the kitchen table “And the crowd goes wild!” I mean, I’m happy. Don’t get me wrong. Piper’s certainly old enough for chores but this crowd seems pretty easy to please to me.
P.S. We’re meeting Piper’s new kindergarten teacher today! “And the crowd goes wild!”
Yesterday was Sunday Funday, which means that one lucky member of our family gets to choose something completely cool to do and the rest of us go along with it. Willingly. I’d suggested a picnic at the beach, but the rain suggested otherwise. “I know,” Sissy said, “let’s go to the Botanical Gardens. It’s peaceful and there’s cool stuff for Piper, too.”
“I hate the Botangical Whatever,” Piper said.
“But you don’t even know what they are. There are walking paths and flowers. There’s a jungle room. And you can plants flowers in the Children’s Garden.” Sissy had sold me. I started packing snacks.
“I’m contrary,” Piper declared. “I never have fun. Call me the contrarian. I hate everything.”
For once, Piper was right. She didn’t have any fun at all.
It’s wasn’t fun when she walked the beautiful garden paths with her sister.
It wasn’t fun when her Mommy held her because a Piper couldn’t walk another step. See how miserable she looks?
It was boring when she saw lily pads for the first time. That’s why she screamed “Look! Lily pads! I’ve only seen those in books! Look, Sissy!”
The smelling room was a total snoozer. That’s why we spent an hour taking the tops off of every bottle so that we could smell the herbs, plants, and spices from around the world.
It definitely wasn’t fun when we climbed inside the Venus Fly Trap and pretended we were being eaten alive.
And since that was so boring, we turned ourselves into a family of Venus Fly Traps.
The final miserable chore was to plant flowers in the Children’s Garden. Here’s the little contrarian hating every minute of it.
“I hope next Sunday Funday has some fun in it,” the contrarian said on the drive home.
Me, too. As you can see, we didn’t have any fun at all.
Piper likes to play hard. She’s not as keen on cleaning up.
Last night Piper and Sissy got out their fort making materials: sixteen pillows, two sets of Craniums, every blanket in the house, and every toy they could shove inside. The fort took up most of our basement. It had multiple rooms and multiple pathways to and from the wings. It was fortastic. They played and played. We let them keep it up for friends to come play, too.
This morning it was time to clean it all up. “Before we head to the park, you girls need to clean up the basement,” Dad said.
Sissy climbed off her chair and bounded down the steps. Happily, as far as we know.
Piper didn’t move. She just sat licking maple syrup off of her fork. Then she slowly turned to her dad and said, “A Piper doesn’t like to pick up. A Piper only likes to play.”
It’s not really a surprise that Piper’s favorite part of kindergarten so far is recess. Since she still doesn’t have a “real” teacher (still waiting, tapping my foot impatiently), there is a lot of recess time. I’m not complaining. Yet. Piper has declared kindergarten awesome because “it’s as fun as preschool without all that boring reading and writing.” Grr. Reality may hit pretty hard once “real” teacher shows up.
In the mean time, Piper plays a lot of a game called “Chasing Carter.” She was astounded one day on the playground to see Carter, a former preschool classmate, on the SAME playground. How can that possibly be? He was at the OTHER school and now he’s at THIS school. This quandry amazes Piper. I’ve pointed out that she, too, was at the OTHER school and now she’s at THIS school, but Piper is not known for her rationality. Here’s how Piper describes “Chasing Carter”:
“So, I see Carter, right? Madeline and I go up to him and say ‘Hey, Carter. Wanna play?’ and he runs.”
“What do you do?”
“We chase him.”
“That sounds like fun. Did you catch him?”
“No,” Piper says, “Carter doesn’t want to play.”
“But it sounds like he’s playing. I thinking you and Madeline chasing him is the game.”
“Nope,” she says, shaking her head, “he doesn’t want to play. That’s why he runs.”
“Does he scream and run away? Or yell at you to stop chasing him?”
piperism 