cartographic lines within your veins

"How did this happen? How did she grow up? It was not fast. They all say it goes fast. But that wasn’t the feeling. It was its impermanence. Every moment never lasts."

Im teaching three classes this semester. Our schedule is all new and so many things are happening, I'm too busy to write out the emotions. But just looking at the difference in Rosie from the first day of 3 year old preschool to the first day of 4 year old preschool fills my eyes with tears.

Owen's not that happy about it, either. He wants to go to school, too.

But for now (for now, for now) he's home with me.

getting in line

Today was Rosie's  - excuse me, she told her teacher she preferred to be called Rosemary - Rosemary's first day of preschool.

As someone who never attended preschool - who never went to any school at all until the age of ten - I have had more than my fair share of apprehension about Rosie going off to school at the tender age of 3 1/2.

My sweet little extrovert, on the other hand, has had less than her share of apprehension.  She's been waiting for this day for weeks.

And this isn't just any preschool.  In a town of 2,000,  you already know almost all the three year olds in the class, who their mamas are, and where they live.  The preschool is run by the Methodist church, and it's down the street from the library and the dance studio.

You can walk there in the starting-to-be-cool autumn mornings with your daughter and her best friend. (And someday, maybe you'll be able to stop at the cafe just down the road for a little treat on the way.)

I stayed dry-eyed, dropping Rosemary off.  We're just talking about ten hours a week.  When I picked her up at 11:30 and asked her about her morning, she said despondently, "They just made us get in line everywhere."

I know she needs to learn to get in line...but I hope my little sweetheart always feels free to march to the beat of her own drummer, too.

alphabet rocks

I've had this idea tucked in my mind for over a year now, waiting until Rosemary became just old enough to 1)play with rocks safely and 2)be interested in the alphabet.

Well, she's definitely interested.

Rosemary has three leapfrog dvds, and I can't really believe it, but she has learned the alphabet, and I think she mostly learned it from them. She can name all the letters, and tell at least one sound that each letter makes. When she started sounding out words on her own a couple weeks ago, I was floored. I'm not saying she can read; and I'm not trying to teach her, or pressuring her to do it. She seems to just be naturally absorbing the information and practicing the skills on her own.

Lately one of her favorite games has been to organize her alphabet blocks - putting matching letters together, putting "baby" letters with "mommy and daddy" letters (her words), separating them by color, etc. But our wooden alphabet blocks (Jack's childhood toys) are an incomplete set. And I remembered the rocks.

I got the rocks at the dollar store ($1 for a bag of about 30 rocks - I got two bags), white letter stickers at the dollar store ($1), and the pink basket at the dollar store (50 cents). I also did paint letters with acrylics on some of the rocks, with capitals on one side and lower case on the opposite side. She likes it.