Where has the school year gone? In the afternoons of seeing the school bus stop at the end of our sidewalk, in the mornings when I woke the girls before light to bowls of oatmeal and helped them pull on their blue or white polo shirts and navy skirts or pants. I tried to quit or at least pause work in the afternoons when they arrived at 3 so we could play or walk to the nearby business district and get ice cream at a neighborhood drugstore. The owners knows their names and knows that Margaret likes vanilla and Clara likes chocolate.
Here in the post No Child Left Behind (and no testing corporation either) World, I despair a little for public education. There are no toys in kindergarten. It's time for sight words, math word problems and reading. Clara is already oriented towards numbers, probably because we like that she can count and add, but there are kids in her class who can't count or read--and yet, they are being told to do word problems. What happened to learning through play? And learning to get along?
Margaret has been in special ed for her fine motor delays, and she can now write. Slowly, and not very well, but she can write nevertheless. We will work on this with her this summer.
She is ready to join her swim team. Hold on to your hats for that.
When the girls get home from school today, we will leave for Texas, where we will stay with my wonderful cousin Peggy and her husband David, loved by women of all ages and stages. But we will go in stages, first to Alabama to see cousins and nieces and their families, then to New Orleans and finally Houston. GTT, as the 19th century Georgians used to write on their doors when they fled the aftermath of the Civil War. Wish us well, it's a long drive.
I thought I knew what it was to miss my mother. But I had no idea how much I would long for her, for someone who would love my children as much as I do. And for Daddy, who wanted to have only girl children and who ended up with three sons. How my parents would have loved Clara and Margaret!
Well, back to work, which is relentless, endless and mind-numbing. Love y'all.