Soapbox

So I’ve got this kid.. and he’s starting preschool next week. That’s because he’s so grown up, right? Well, I thought he was, until I started thinking about sending him off to some stranger two mornings a week. He feels grown up and is disappointed that he won’t get to ride a school bus for a few more years yet.

He tells me he’s all ready for school now because, "Mom, I’m growing big and big!" I smile and agree that he certainly is, but for crying out loud, he’s sitting there in his Mickey Mouse underpants with his "soft white blanket" watching Shining Time Station and I’m half terrified for him. He’s so little and odd, and unique, and I don’t want the world to put out that strange light inside him. I cringe at the thought of him facing the scorn of others when he’s playing one of his lovely imaginary games, or refers to himself as Gumby and they don’t know what the heck he’s talking about.

I remember my own numbing realization at about age 6 or 7 as to what it was to be popular, and the clear knowledge that I never would be. No one understood me, and I took alot of knocks for that. I don’t know who this kid is going to turn out to be, but I wish I could spare him some of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that surely await him.

Ok, I realize that this is only preschool we’re talking here, but it’s the beginning of the long road of not only schooling but socialization and putting my funny little square peg into a round hole. (And if you know my peg, he’ll never fit in.)

I read a column in the paper about sending kids off into the world, and it said it perfectly.

"Dear World, my young son starts school today… teach him to have faith in his own ideas, even if everyone says they’re wrong. Do it gently, if you can..he’s such a nice fellow, my little son."

Oh my. And I still have college tuition to look forward to.

    So I've got this kid, …and now there's another on the way. Things are getting busy, now that we're coming down to the wire. Since we've got kind of a small apartment, my sewing table is set up in the basement. I tell you all this to excuse myself for leaving the kid upstairs by himself while I was in the basement sewing baby clothes. Well, he was watching Sesame Street or Fred Penner or something and was quite happy, so I went down to get a little work done.
     And of course he was quiet and I lost track of the time and all of a sudden I looked up from my machine and said to myself,  Uh oh.. He's been too quiet for too long. Like Miss Clavell in "Madeline", I ran fast and faster. I lumbered to the top of the stairs and came face to face with Stephen.
At least, I presumed it was Stephen.

    He was covered, completely, in flour. Two large blue eyes were blinking at me out of a white face, and trying to look completely innocent. That's tough to do when every breath causes a small cloud of flour to float down off of you! He regarded his dusty hands for a moment, went to lick his lips and made a face and spit out flour. I looked behind him and could see flour tracks across  the kitchen floor where he had been skating through it.
    If I've learned anything about raising kids, you know that you must never ever laugh at anything they do unless you want them to think you approve and do it again. So I worked desperately at a stern, unhappy Mommy face, but had to turn away and cough a couple of times to keep from losing it. I finally managed to say,
      "Oh Stephen, you know better than to do something like that" with only a small tremor in my voice. He blinked at me, and a bit flour drifted off his eyebrows. "Mommy is very unhappy with this mess!" I managed to squeak.
     I stood him in the middle of the kitchen ("Do NOT move!") while I went for the vacuum, because I could see that if I put him in the tub first thing, he'd just turn into the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Of course he giggled with absolute delight when I sucked his hair up into the vacuum and seemed to be having entirely too much fun. I made him "help" vacuum the floor before his bath but frankly, he seemed to like watching the flour disappear as much as he had probably liked sprinkling it in the first place.
     Now I'm worried that I'm going to have to lock up my baking goods or next week I may come up and find the ABC's smeared out in chocolate chips on the kitchen floor!