I met my kid at her middle school after dismissal–outside the building…

She seems OK.

She wants to go home.  But, she wants to walk.  She doesn’t want to jump right on to a bus or a train.

We stopped at Aeropostale.  She chose one t-shirt to purchase.  She doesn’t seem to feel the need to purchase a whole new wardrobe and turn into a completely different person–which I, as a parent -without much to to on- take as a good sign.

She doesn’t want to stop at the diner.  She doesn’t want to talk to me.  A soda and chips from the deli will suffice.

At home she goes into her room.

Processing…???

I get a call from her “advisor” at the new school.  They have “advisory” at this new school.  The adult teacher person has been assigned 12 students to keep track of over the coming school year.  She called me to give me her cell phone number and e-mail address.  This is very encouraging.  I had an awful time in 6th grade and I graduated from elementary school at the end to 8th grade.  The building didn’t change.  The schedule didn’t change.  Nothing changed except for the fact that the 6th, 7th and 8th graders were all going through puberty…  All I can say is I”m glad my kid, and all the other kids in the building have been assigned specific grown-ups to talk to about whatever is going on before  anything has been identified as a “problem”.  Because there will be problems.  Bodies will change size and shape.  Boys will cease to be “the enemy”.  The realization will set in just how much school there is left to get through if one wants to become a doctor or a scientist or anything else…

As a parent, I found it was surprisingly hard to concentrate on anything in the hours that followed leaving my daughter at a new and larger school.  (It doesn’t help that the media, especially WNYC is constantly referring to 9/11 when I was newly transplanted to New York with a walking baby in diapers).  I remember the first days of preschool, Pre-K, kindergarten and all of the other grades throughout her elementary school career when, on the first day, the parents were allowed to escort their children to their classroom and meet their new teachers.  No more.

The first day of middle school isn’t anything like the first day of elementary school.  It wasn’t like kindergarten. We didn’t go into the classroom. We did go into the building but only a few feet until my child identified the correct person with a clipboard who told her what group she was in and where to go. And then we were done. The husband and I were so disoriented we got on the F train going further into Brooklyn instead of into Manhattan. Oh well. A cup of coffee together–which we had time for because middle school starts almost an hour earlier than elementary school did.   Thank goodness for the short commute.  Theatre people and musicians are notoriously bad at getting their offspring to school on time.  In New York City it is the attendance and lateness records that affect the outcome of the school application process for the next school on the great education conveyor belt.  (Well it was a conveyor belt for me in mid-America.  It’s a crap-shoot in NYC.)

In Manhattan, before I got down to work, I walked from The Husband’s office building through Times Square. I walked through the Disney Store and Toys R because I was missing my girl. The Disney store was full of costumes she is too old to wear. At Toys R Us I remembered when she was so small I kept a running list in my head of developmental toys: blocks, dishes, puzzles, dress up clothes and wether or not she had them yet and when I would give them to her. There wasn’t anything for me to buy for her today.  Her objects of desire come from other establishments now. Sigh.

I was thoroughly entertained watching my 14-month old walk because someone had she walked like a drunk and I agreed to the point of laughing out loud.

On Thursday, September 6, 2001:  I was impressed that my little girl ate 2 plums along with yogurt and some of my cheese for her breakfast.  I took her to the to the mom and baby support group we had been attending at the Elisabeth Seaton childbirth center on 14th street where I realized that she was the oldest one there that day and that we would have to switch to the Tuesday toddler group.  Afterwards I pushed the stroller to the Bleeker Street Playground, had a slice of pizza for lunch and then took the subway from West 4th to Chambers to see Rennie Harris and the Urban Bush Women performing in the World Trade Center Plaza.  My Kid fell asleep on the train.  The Husband met us there after work and we went home together.  We had just discovered this was a a great place for us to meet at the end of the day, on our A-train subway line, halfway between our Brooklyn apartment in Fort Greene and The Husband’s Manhattan office in Chelsea.

I had an application for the Montessori School at the Brooklyn YWCA in front of me, doing the math with various combinations of hours and days trying to figure out how much childcare we could afford.  I was getting ready to look for a job. We were still so new to Brooklyn. September was going to be the first month that my husband, daughter and I were all going to be together for a whole month in our own place in our new city since the job transfer from Seattle.

I was looking forward to meeting other moms from the neighborhood who had walking babies the same age as my daughter at the first session of the toddler playgroup at the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church at 11:30 on Tuesday, September 11, 2001.

Happy Birthday to my BEAUTIFUL SISTER.
She suffered from the Labor Day Weekend everyone-is-out-of-town-bad-time-for-a-birthday-party her whole life.
But she grew up and became an amazing person all the same.
I LOVE YOU!!!!

My goal is to post every day this month.

We dropped  off our daughter at her new middle school at 7:30 this morning.  It’s not the first day of school.  It’s 6th grade orientation.  They’re going to take a bus upstate for the day to play some games and get to know each other before school starts next week.  It’s like an off-site retreat.

My kid said good-bye and went into the cafeteria with the other girls.  We waited out in the lobby with the other parents.  Then a mom that we knew came in with her daughter who went into the cafeteria.  The mother followed her daughter.  I followed the other mom.

There were lots of other parents standing around the edges of the cafeteria where the girls sat together at the tables waiting to be told what to do next.

My kid saw me and immediately stopped talking to the girl next to her.

She glared at me.

Her eyes flashed: “Get out of here!”

Well…

That’s middle school so far.

This evening we attended the incoming 6th grader orientation at My Kid’s new school. She’s starting a new school. She’s going to middle school. It was just a regular day, until we left the house and started walking toward the entrance to the subway to go to the school. I realized my heart was racing and I was afraid as though I was the one starting new school.

When we got to the school cafeteria there was so much information about the after school program. There were so many waivers and permission slips. I haven’t signed my name on so many different pieces of paper in a single sitting since we bought a house.

We were standing in line to buy gyros from the fair booth sponsored by the Greek Orthodox Church and the young people behind me were talking.

The blonde girl said to the soldiers in fatigues:

“I’d already signed the papers even before they came to talk to my parents.”

She talked about her job at the Dairy Queen and the soldier talked about the job she’d had at Arby’s.  They were glad to have benefits and they used them:

“I got my teeth fixed.  I got my glasses.”

I thought how many hours, days, months, and years these young women had spent standing behind a fast food counters while they were in high school in order to be eligible for benefits.

In the evening during the opening ceremonies of the Missoula Stampede Rodeo, the announcer proclaimed that tonight was Military Appreciation Night at the Western Montana Fair and Rodeo and introduced the sergeant who had traveled all the way  from Salt Lake City, Utah to induct the new recruits tonight.  The sergeant was the dark haired young woman in army fatigues from the food line and slender blonde girl was with the other new military recruits marching bravely out to stand in the dirt of the rodeo arena and take the oath of enlistment in front of the grandstand crowd under the big sky surrounded by mountains and cowboys on horses and American flags.

I was glad I was wearing sunglasses.