Wednesday, August 8, 2007

The first day of the rest of his life. Or something like that.

Well, today was Bubba's first day of pre-K. We had an open house last night that was absolute mayhem. Sixty kids. Plus about 120 parents -- figuring two per kid which I know is not always the case but let's just go with it for now. Plus several assorted older and younger siblings all milling about in a very tiny space. And it was hot, y'all. I swear sometimes I think I'm going through the change with these hot flashes I get. But that's another story. Anyway, we met Bubba's teachers Ms. Anita and Ms. Chhaya (yes, there are 2 h's in her name -- I don't know why) and they seem very nice.

Now, originally I was going to walk Bubba in this morning. It seemed like a momentous event, you know? But after seeing the classroom and meeting the teachers, I felt like it maybe wasn't necessary after all. The parking situation is not ideal and I would have had to lug Punkin' along. And I would have had to carry her or else she would be flinging herself down in a fit every time I wouldn't bend to her whims. She's a drama queen, that one. I have NO IDEA where she gets it. Ahem. And getting her out of there without Bubba would have been more than I could bear at 7:15 in the morning. That child loves her Bubba.

And the honest truth is that sometimes I hog all the special events in the kids' lives. My schedule has just always been more flexible and most of the time I'm the one who does this kind of thing. So, I figured it was only fair to let Mr. Daddy handle this momentous event.

All day long I wondered how things were going. Finally, the moment of truth. When I arrived at the center the lady behind the desk said "Hi! Who are you?" (in a nice way, of course). I told her I was Bubba's mom and she said "Oh. Great!" I asked how his day went and she said "Well, I talked to the pre-K teachers this afternoon and his name didn't come up. So, that's a good thing!" Whew! I just knew she was going to say "Oh yeah. He's the one who won't stop talking."

The biggest challenge of my day is trying to find out about Bubba's day. I swear if getting information from him as a teenager is any more difficult than it is now, I can see I better gird my loins for a battle ahead. You basically have to play 20 questions and sometimes if you get him going he'll tell you everything. Other times -- pfffft! Nothing. Here's how it went today:

Me: How was your first day at school, Bubba?
Bubba: Good.
Me: Did you have fun?
B: Yes.
Me: What did you do?
B: I played. (Oh really, you don't say.)
Me: Did you have a a good lunch?
B: Yeah. I didn't like what was on the sandwich so I scraped it off and ate my bread.
Me: What was it?
B: I don't know.
There were lots of questions in between but I actually gleaned very little from them.

And finally:
Me: Did you have a good snack?
B: It was wonderful!
Me: It was? That's great! What was it.
B: Some kind of cheese crackers. They didn't taste very good.
Me: I thought you said it was wonderful?
B: It was. For everybody else.

Ah, that Bubba. Always thinking of others. :)

3 comments:

Laurel said...

Like you, my kiddo had her first day of Kindergarten--all day. Life is really going to be different. Easier and sadder,too.

Your little B sounds precious. I mean, "Wonderful for everyone else?" Couldn't you just eat him up for that?!

Now seriously, Britney has totally fallen off the sanity truck, right? And now she's being run over by it. It just doesn't end.

Anonymous said...

I highly recommend the girding of your loins. Your conversation with Bubba sounds like a conversation with my Gus. Except for Gus is 18.

It only gets better, my friend...

precarious tomato said...

Cletus the fetus. HA!

Okay, that totally made my afternoon. Now if only somebody would bring me some wonderful-to-me cheese...