Backpacks and mysteries

Rachel started school this week, with what felt (to me) like surprisingly little pomp. I was all worried about getting everyone ready in time, but really, getting out of the house in time for 9:00 preschool is not so bad. At least, not yet--perhaps I'll be singing a different tune when we need coats, boots, a shoveled walk, and a cleaned-off car before we can leave! Anyway, we got to the school and she marched right in and found the hook with her name above it and hung her (adorably small) backpack from the hook. (We'd visited before, so she knew which classroom would be hers, and she'd looked longingly at the hooks many a time, wishing her name were on one of the signs.) Then we waited a while and chatted with some other moms and kids (who all seemed to have baby brothers along, interestingly enough--perhaps we'll be hanging out with this same crowd of moms again in a couple of years!) until Miss Edna came and opened the classroom door. Then she marched right in and started playing with toys and the bean table. She may have glanced up when I kissed her good-bye; I'm not sure. And she had a marvelous day! Her job at snack time was to pass out the napkins--she told me later that her dream job is to get the juice, and she's longing for the day she can do that one. Her favorite part of school was coloring.

All of this I was prepared for--the jumping right in, the loving coloring time, etc. I was not prepared--though I was aware that this was coming--for how goofy our conversations would become, once she had things to talk about that I had no experience of. She sang a song repeatedly at lunch about four little hamburgers going out to play. Four little hamburgers? This is weirder than adel! I asked if it was a song she made up, or one she learned at school, and she told me, "I just learned it." So she pretty effectively evaded my question. On further renditions, I decided that she learned it from her own blond head, since it's sort of like a mash-up of three or four songs and poems I know she's heard or sung at some point, if we can allow hamburgers to stand in for helicopters. Anyway, not knowing where it came from sort of threw me for a loop. Then add to that all the questions I can't really answer--"Why will you have to go to the hospital if you touch leaves?" (Did they see some poison ivy on their walk? Does Miss Edna keep them in line through fear? Has Rachel made another mash-up of several answers to several questions and created a new one?)--and you see that I am getting all sorts of new sleuthing challenges to keep my intellect sharp! (Oh, for balancing equations and stoichiometry...so clear, so, so...tidy!)

So that is a long story to tell that Rachel really likes school. (Her job the second day was to clean up the tables. And some boys were hitting. But they got told not to hit by the esteemed Miss Edna, so all was well. Still waiting for her turn to get the juice!)

Here she is, about to go to school!