New School Year Hopes

We found out last Friday that Alice will be in Mrs. Parson's 2nd grade class. This was the teacher she was hoping for. We also learned that she will have several good friends in her class with her. Hooray! To find out these things, we had to go to the school at 4pm on Friday just as the office folks were leaving. They post the class assignments on the window and then run away.

I found the experience quite enlightening this year.

First off, Alice was thrilled about her future teacher and only mildly amused to see she would share a classroom with her closest friends. Later, when someone asked who else would be in her class, she couldn't recall. I was happy and confused at the same time that peer influence was not as powerful as I had thought.

While we were at the school, lots of other families arrived to check out their class assignments, too. We ran into a few friends and the kids played together on the playground for a while. Alice and a hoard of children were playing some sort of complicated running game on the blacktop. She was in her element: leading, coordinating, changing rules to accommodate others, and being just plain silly when the mood struck. Sometimes I look at her and wonder where on earth this big, confident, and capable girl came from. She's growing up. My hopes for her this year are mainly social. I don't worry about her academically, except to fret that she's not being challenged enough. I want her to practice respectfully standing up for herself while finding common ground with others. It's a fine line. Tricky. But maybe not so hard for an intuitive sort of extrovert like this girl.

Robert was content to play on the playground on his own and hunt for acorns to fill his pockets. I remember that Alice didn't have any real friends she could name until her second year of preschool. Robert will be starting his second year of preschool next week. I wonder about how he will grow socially over the next 12 months...will he suddenly take interest in playing with specific kids like Alice did? Or will he be perfectly content with his own games? So far, when he does play with other kids, it looks like he prefers to play with one child at a time and follow his/her lead. When a third child joins the game, he sort of wanders off and finds something else to do. While we were at the school playground on Friday, a bold little toddler just 20 months old walked up to Robert, took his hand, and started leading him around. Robert had this amused look on his face as he followed her lead. I wonder what he was thinking. My hopes for him this year are social, too. He struggles using words to express himself, happy or sad, and I would love to have him practice that emotive-language skill. I also want him to find a friend groove. He doesn't have to be the life of the party. I just want him to experiment with deeper friendships and practice that kind of relationship. I'm also thinking about what I'll write next year when I register him for Kindergarten. They will ask me to describe his personality, strengths, and weaknesses...who will Robert grow into in the next 12 months? How will he fare in a full-day classroom buzzing with kids and new activities and scheduled routines? What kind of insight could I offer that would maximize his chances of landing the "right" teacher and class mates?

James, well, he alternated between running after Alice's cohort and exploring the playground on his own. He climbed everything he could as high as he could, yelling for my attention when he wanted to show me something cool. He explored handfuls of pebbles one after the other. That same bold toddler that led Buddy around came up to James and got in his face. She wasn't exactly threatening him, but James didn't like how close she was, so he started to run away. She chased after him and he came straight to me, crying. He kept a sharp eye on her whereabouts after that, only leaving my lap when she had left the playground. He's not usually so timid when Robert is the one getting in his face. I haven't seen James around new kids very often, so it was interesting to watch. Anyway, I can see eager, social, and independent parts of James' personality coming through. He's just now learning how to play with Alice and Robert. My hope for him this year is to develop a strong and playful relationship with Robert in particular. James already has a special love for Robert. He gives him excited, affectionate hugs when he sees him in the morning. He's not always so physically loving towards Alice (which confuses me, but that's another post for another day). With Alice out of the way at school, and James maturing socially and linguistically a bit more every day, maybe Robert will finally view him as a valid play mate. Just the other day, they were playing "steamroller" on the living room floor, rolling and rolling all around, then bumping into each other and laughing. James was in heaven! If I'm there to help Robert use more words and smooth out minor misunderstandings, the boys can actually play REALLY well together. They love to make each other laugh.

And then there's the wild card. This baby. This as-yet-unknown and completely life-consuming entity who will grow from a wrinkly, red squeaker into a walking, playing, human being in the next 12 months. All signs point to Alice and Robert adoring him while James keeps his distance and insists on keeping my lap to himself. We'll see. My hopes for the baby? Well, mostly I hope for my own sanity balancing four dependent lives. I hope he eats well and sleeps well. I hope he grows fat and big like his brothers before him. I hope he's delighted to be surrounded by all the noise and activity that makes up our household. We'll worry about all the other stuff when he gets a little older :)

So, bring on the new year! I'm excited to see what will come.