Thursday, May 15, 2008

• It too scary, to quote my son.

  Currently Reading Desire of the Everlasting Hills: The World Before and After Jesus (Hinges of History) By Thomas Cahill see related

  I've been doing weird stuff lately. Things that aren't like me, like forgetting important dates or getting them mixed up with other, more important occasions. Things like typing out "precious" and then realizing almost too late that I actually spelled it phonetically, i.e. "preshus," and didn't even know.

  If my life were "The X-Files," it would turn out I had a tumor implanted by aliens that was taking away my memory and sanity (but bonus! I'd be in close proximity to David Duchovny!). If it were a soap opera, it would turn out that I am not me at all but my evil twin who was separated from me at birth while I, a victim of amnesia, woke up chained to a cellar wall until an extreme fan of plastic surgery rescued me from my Pit of Despair. If it were a romance novel, I'd surely be in luuuuuv because absent-mindedness and a general disregard for the well-being of those around you are sure signs of true romantic attachment.

  But as it is, this is my real life and there's no good explanation for it, just the rather pathetic reason that I came up with, which is that I am extremely worried about Wooster going into kindergarten and I'm trying to hide it instead of deal with it. I went to register her at the same school Bishop has happily attended for almost three years yesterday. She occupied herself by shouting, "Helllllloooo, fishies!" at the aquarium and trying to sit on the laps of two boys who were waiting to be seen by the principal for throwing spitballs at each other while I filled out the requisite reams of paperwork. I picked a "first day of kindergarten" visit date for her (week after next, just a half-day) and ushered her out the door, much to her disappointment since she'd apparently been hoping to visit Bishop in his classroom.

  She is so not ready to be there. She can't answer a question as simple as, "Where are your shoes?" let alone, "Why did you do that?" She knows and recognizes numbers up through 10, but she doesn't know the alphabet except for the song and can't even spell her name, let alone write it. And before you wonder, yes. These are things that, if you measure by time spent trying to teach her, she should know.

  She's made huge gains this year, nonetheless. Her awesome teachers and speech therapist have helped her finally recognize all the colors, even gray, and ask "where are we going?" She can make her dolls have conversations that aren't pages of dialogue from her favorite videos now. She can jump with both feet at once, at last. She notices when other people are happy, angry, or sad and tries to help.

  Day before yesterday, she was watching "Blue's Clues" and got a notebook and crayon. Joe drew a box. She drew a shaky spiral. Joe drew the letter T. She drew a circle, then a scribble. Joe drew something else, and she colored the whole page red. She held the crayon in her fist, not in the appropriate position. I watched her try to copy the symbols on the screen, and I knew she found them as incomprehensible as her thought processes are to me, and my heart swelled up into my throat and I couldn't breathe for a minute or two from sheer anxiety.

  She looked up and saw me watching her. "Look, Mama! I dwaw!" she announced proudly.

  "You drew a circle with the red crayon," I confirmed, and hugged her.

  She kissed me and said, "I love you too, Mom. I love you." At that moment I remembered how, at this time last year, she couldn't tell me that spontaneously. I was able to take a deep breath again. Hopefully I'll keep on remembering to do so.

  • 12:35 PM
  • 32 views
  • 16 eprops
  • 8 comments