It’s Spirit Week at Sissy and Piper’s school. Every day they are supposed to dress up. Monday was sports team day. Tuesday was hat day. Wednesday is Wacky Tacky. You get the idea. It’s been a fun week, but last night, dress up hit a speed bump.

“What’s Wacky Tacky?” Piper asked.

“You wear mismatched clothes. Crazy stuff. Fun stuff. You know. Like a costume,” Sissy explained. “Here. I’ll show you.” Sissy took Piper into her room to share the outfit she’d picked out: tie dye shirt, floral scarf as a belt, mismatched socks, two different earrings, silver shift, day glow belts, etc.

Piper went to her own closet and started pulling out accessories. The rainbow dress, of course, polka dot socks, silver strands of beads, a blue tutu, rainbow sunglasses, and two different sparkly shoes. “That’s perfect, P. Very wacky tacky,” I said. “You’ll look great.”

Piper looked over her outfit one last time. I assumed she was trying to work in one more rainbow something. “But that’s not wacky tacky,” she said. “That looks like what I wear every day.”

You know how you say a hundred things a day and your kids aren’t listening? Me, too. Most times I feel like a broken record doling out champion advice that is lost on the masses. Last week, though, for one glorious moment, all of my parenting of the Piper for the last five years was validated.

Piper got lost at school. Her elementary school is massive. Brace yourself. 1000 kids in K-5 in an overcrowded building. But. The staff is amazing. The principal is always present. The school runs well. It’s a positive environment. Sissy and Piper love the place, but still you lose a kid every now and then in the 1000 person shuffle. Piper was the one that day. She was in the lunch room. There was classical music playing that she said she was enjoying. She lost her place in line and her class went to the playground without her. She looked around and didn’t recognize a single face.

“So what did you do, P?” I asked when she told us at dinner. My heart was pounding in my ears. My baby got lost at school. Why was no one helping her? Why was she all alone? In my head I was in full ranting mommy mode ready to call the principal at his home. He really should have known better than giving a woman like me his cell number. Rookie move. I held my breath.

“At first I cried,” Piper said, “just a little inside. Then I remembered that you said that if I don’t make things happen nothing will happen, so I asked a big kid for help and they took me to the playground.”

Big exhale. My work here is done.

Since Sissy’s in charge of walking the Piper to and from school, she’s going to report on the big first day. From the desk of kindergarten, here’s another blog from Sissy:

Today was Piper’s first day of kindergarten. She started the day with her usual grumpiness but when she remembered that it was the first day, fits of screaming joy followed. Kindergarten is the next big thing. Her life goals, she once told me, are to say hi to her kindergarten teacher and buy all the My Little Ponies at Toys R Us.

We departed for school after struggling horribly not to take school pictures.  Her are the fruits of my parents’ labor:

When we got to school we had to stand with my dad waiting for the school doors to open. My friends fawned over Piper and she agreed. “I guess I am pretty cute,” Piper said. I always tell her that if she doesn’t make friends in kindergarten, at least she’ll have friends in fifth grade.

Then we found our classrooms. I might of shed a tear. Just a little one.

I saw her later in the day during the first day fire drill. She said she got separated from her class, but she was waving at me and smiling like crazy in her class line, so you can’t really tell. Then, after struggling to get out of the building because of all the parents and confusion, we got to the bottom of the first day. She has a nice teacher, she met some few friends, they didn’t get enough recess (yeah, right), and she had her first music class. At first I wasn’t sure she had had music class. “We went to see the music teacher,” Piper said. “She was super cool and sang us a song about bees. Then we went and danced to a funny song.”

“Umm. Piper. Did you have music class or just visit the music teacher?” I asked.

“Well… if you mean did I get to play my drums, then no. But I did have fun!”

Piper did a dance that looked like the funky chicken to demonstrate.

“I love school? Do we have it tomorrow?” Piper asked.

“Tomorrow is Tuesday. We have school on Tuesdays,” I told her. “Do you want me to teach you the days of the week?”

“No. But when is my Halloween party?”