Big or small: a lesson in perspective

She said it quietly, nearly under her breath, as if she wasn’t sure she should say out loud exactly what she was thinking.

“He’s SO big.”

Eli sat at the top of the red slide attached to the preschool play structure. His size 11 shoes dangled about a foot from the bottom.  His trip down was very short but he didn’t seem to mind. He climbed back up with enthusiasm.

I looked up at the face of his preschool teacher and raised my eyebrows. I hear this said in different ways all the time and have no good stock response or retort.

“I mean REALLY. He’s taller than all the pre-K girls.”

This catches me off guard a little. Really? Taller than the five-year-old girls? He's 3. I looked down at my smiling son now running around the gym. I know in my head he’s a big kid but in my mind he’s my little buddy.

Hearing this come from an educator who has seen a lot of kids in her career made it all a little more real. It's very likely I won't have as much time as most parents do to look down at his face and pat his head while we walk and talk. I just hope I'm not looking up to him when he's 8!

Mother's Day 2014: A Review in Pictures

As a mom, I try not to put too much importance on Mother's Day. It's an arbitrary day to collectively acknowledge as a society that mother's rule the world.  But a lot of pomp and circumstance over the day seems silly and a bit contrived. And yet, I love every tidbit of acknowledgement I get as part of its celebration. And if I were to get nothing on that floral-focused Sunday, I wouldn't be mad or upset. But I would remember.

As it so happens, my Mother's Day weekend was exceptional. It was definitely a reminder what a great job being a mom can be. And how great it is to get to take a break from it on occasion.

My Mother's Day in Pictures

Cards from My Buddy

Flowers from My Husband

Manicure/Pedicure Day with Jamie Courtesy of Husbands

Eli hijacked my phone and decided to take my picture Mother's Day morning.

Viewing of the Grand Budapest Hotel with Celeste at the Hollywood Theater

I'm pretty lucky. And sometimes its forced holidays like Mother's Day that remind me how good I have it.

Throwback Thursday: Kindergarten

I have a lot of very vivid memories of my year in kindergarten. I didn't go to pre-school; kindergarten was my first 'school' environment where 15+ five-year-olds were expected (or perhaps hoped for is the right word here) to sit in little chairs, paint, glue and play nicely with each other.

(I suppose Sunday school was an early version of this except half the kids in my Sunday school were cousins, my teacher was always either my grandma, great aunt or dad and we didn't really have to play nicely with each other.)

At any rate, kindergarten was a big room full of strangers. I don't think I said a word most of that year but I clearly watched and took it all in on some level because I have very clear memories of that place. 

Things I remember from Kindergarten

1. One class-wide lesson was to bring in some sort of 'seed' we found at our house. The teacher put our seeds in little baggies and put them on a piece of poster board on the wall.  Kids brought in all sorts of seeds I had never seen or thought of before - avocado, kiwi, tangerine - exotic finds in my mind. I brought in apple seeds. Good 'ole boring apple seeds like 5 other kids in the class. The kid that brought in banana seeds (whomever you were) had me completely and utterly impressed.

2. We had a Thanksgiving recital complete with songs and colored-paper hats. Some kids were pilgrims with the appropriate head wear. Others were Indians (when people said Indians) with colored feather bandanas around their heads. I think I was a pilgrim. We all sat in a little room (what would have been the dining room of the converted house) and sang some Thanksgiving songs (what would we have even sang?) to the parents sitting in the converted living room.

There was a drawing that day - the name drawn would get to take home a 2' x 3' cut out turkey all of the kids had worked to color during the month.  

I won. My mom still hangs it up at her house.

3. I remember learning the difference between rubber and plastic and having that moment of, 'oh, now I get it.'

4. I remember telling my mom we were asked to bring someone to kindergarten who would be attending next year so that we could introduce them and show them around. Desperate to show my best friend and cousin, Ryan, who was a year behind me at school, where I went to kindergarten, I told my mom about this and she scheduled to have Ryan join me at school the next day.  

Only one problem. Apparently it wasn't the next day that we were supposed to bring next year's recruits. I watched out the big front window as the kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Gower(sp?) explained the error to my mom through the driver's side window, with Ryan in the backseat. I was mortified and played in the back bedroom that morning with an ugly cloth doll until we were forced to come together for group activities. 

5.  I saw my first real coconut (cool) and ate some for the first time (gross).

6. I remember being the last kid to be picked-up from school one day. I ended up playing longer than normal in the garage area waiting for my mom to arrive and thinking it was odd. At some point, a car pulled up and a woman got out informing my teacher that my mom and sister had been in a car wreck and that she was there to take me home (I honestly have no idea what the verbal conversation was. And I have no memory of how I got from Kindergarten to home.) The lady that picked me up (I think she took me home) was someone my mom knew and who had driven by the wreck and worked out a plan with my mom.  

I was definitely scared by this whole thing. But what I remember most is my Annie lunch box was in the car and it got a big dent in it.

7. We had a big kindergarten graduation ceremony at Hucrest elementary school. We all marched up onto what seemed like the biggest, grandest stage imagninable to receive our diplomas. I remember thinking I was pretty grown-up in that moment.