Kindergarten is AWESOME!

We have settled into a lovely pattern here, with my working-morning weekdays and the Wee One napping and the Biggie’s trumpeted arrival home from school. I finally feel like things are resembling normalcy, in a way that they never have since the Biggie first burst upon the scene, all big-eyed seven pounds and two ounces of her. My mom was right, I crave routine. It’s strangely comforting not to have to decide anew what to do, every single day.

The Biggie adores kindergarten, the music, art, Pledge of Allegiance (“for Richard Stands”) and gym class, everything except the bathroom. The teacher and I recently realized that she is not going at school, she’s waiting until she gets home. Although that is no great length of time compared with her pee-holding record (16 hours), it is simply not sustainable over the long haul. Argh, the heart-shriveling specter of potty training haunts us once more.

But the rest of kindergarten rocks, and I am wondering why we were paying $300 a month to send her for two days a week to a little monochromatic preschool where they only served vegan snacks and the art corner was a pile of paper scraps. (“Why won’t she eat hummus?” they asked, as if it were some serious spiritual shortcoming. I hemmed and hawed over that one, having the grace not to reply that it tastes like feet dipped in lemon juice.)

I am sad because the Wee One’s babysitter is having a new baby of her own, and won’t be able to watch Wee anymore. (Of course I’m happy about the baby itself!) Sad especially because the Wee One loves the stuffing out of her, and calls her “Mama Manda”--I am referred to as the “Biggie’s Mama.” It will be nice, however, to save another $300 a month, though this will require me starting work at 6 each morning, so the Husband can watch the small ones while I surf and type away. Automatic coffee machine = New Best Friend.

Fall has come to central New York, and with it the rain and the smell of wood smoke in the air. We are preparing for winter’s hunkering down, buying long johns and sweaters, pulling out the down comforters and the flannel sheets. This is my favorite season; everything is dying in an orderly, preprogrammed way that makes you see the beauty in this aspect of life.

Hot cider, anyone?