... and my much adored baby-sitter has returned, and can I say, this overworked, kid-tired mom is very happy this morning to turn her children over to the care of others. Very happy. Mothers, women, all of us need interior time, down time, time to regroup. For me, regrouping comes from being alone, focusing, putting words together. Walking, hiking and exercise is good, but there's something special about word-play and word-work for me. I am one happy mom this morning, having survived the dog days, which did finally come, in grand style, and moved past the Labor Day transition into something new.
Plus, I'm listening to
Cat Stevens Radio on Pandora.com, which is music from say, 3d grade for me. Fitting perhaps, since third grade began today for my oldest daughter.
This morning at school drop off my daughter's classroom had no desks. She's in third grade, so they're supposed to be there. The classroom has been renovated, and the new set of desks just hadn't arrived. It was a bit of a shock. Okay, and the area rug also hadn't arrived, so the kids walked into a room with small chairs arranged in a circle, each with a clipboard across the seat.
My first instinct was outrage and frustration. How can this happen? Didn't they plan ahead? Don't our kids deserve real desks, and a seamless start to the school year?
Must be the school's Quaker sensibility quelling my need for order and visual perfection. I mentioned--very, very quietly--my concern about the desks to one of the dads. He agreed. Yes, that's right. The desks aren't here. i told my daughter that that's how third grade sometimes starts. Sometimes they don't put the desks in the room until the second week.
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How fabulous, how evolved and humane to replace the demand for order with an ability to go with what happens and turn it into a new story. In my head I was ready to call the head of school and complain, and then call the school next door to see if they had an opening in a classroom with desks. I'll wait. Samira's in a class with a veteran teacher with a wonderful reputation. We've talked this summer about trusting school, about buying in, about making it and its demands--even homework--our own. Top on this list is trusting the teacher. I'm a teacher too, and if I had to deal with a room without desks for a few days, I know I would make it work. I'd turn it into something interesting. I'd create a metaphor about furniture and its absence that somehow mimicked the themes of the course. I'd make it work.
I realized I had to walk the walk here, and trust that this good teacher would, similarly, know what to do with a few desks that had gone missing for a few days. 