A Star is Born

Alison's first month and a half of kindergarten has probably been no different than any five-year-old girl in Anytown, USA. She's made new friends, fallen in love with her teacher, had trouble finishing her lunch, and learned an awful lot.

Her parents have also had what I'm guessing is a fairly typical experience. We've been overwhelmed by the fundraising (two already; e-mail me if you'd like a new Entertainment guide or some snazzy wrapping paper), surprized by the nightly homework, and shocked to see how much our daughter has grown up in such a short time.

And then there are the events. So far we've been to five in only six weeks, and that doesn't count the first day of school. First, there was the PTA meeting, which was an absolute disaster. You'd think they'd make the first meeting relatively painless -- maybe even a little interesting -- to encourage people to join, but instead they chose to go another route -- a two-hour route. I spent most of the evening chasing Alison and Henry around the playground while Leslie endured the meeting, which was artfully staged by the PTA president, a rather fetching lass named Hildy. (I have no idea what her name actually is, but Hildy fits.) Hildy has a body like a Coke machine, a face like a frying pan, and a voice like a chainsaw. Since we don't know her real name, Leslie and I refer to her as Mrs. Doubtfire.

Soon after the PTA meeting we had Back to School Night, which was nice. Over-anxious parents that we are, we had already had several conversations with her teachers, but it was good to talk to them some more. Also, we learned that of the 20 children in Alison's class, twelve have a teacher as a parent. Another interesting note: Leslie and I recognized a former student, and I said to him, "So do you have a little brother or sister in this class?" His response: "No, a daughter." Nice.

The following week there was a potluck dinner for the Spanish Immersion parents. It was an event designed to foster a community amongst the parents, and I must admit that the families were all very nice, but my main concern was that the Yankees were playing the Red Sox in the opening game of a terribly important series. I spent a fair amount of time using my cell phone to check the score.

Two weeks later there was a magic show -- the Brock Edwards Experience! The promos had promised that a teacher would be cut in half, and Alison was incredibly fascinated by this and full of questions. How would they cut her in half? Will they really cut her in half? How will they put her back together? As it turned out, I totally freaked Alison out by pretending to raise her hand when the magician asked for volunteers, and we ended up leaving at intermission. We never heard about how the teacher was cut in half or if she was put back together.

The fifth event was last Thursday -- Literacy Night. They had storytelling, hat making, rubber stamping, stuff like that. It was pretty boring -- Leslie and I kept laughing about how we had dragged both sets of grandparents out for this -- but the payoff came at the end, and it was huge. The kindergarten classes had prepared a performance.

I wasn't expecting much. Whenever we went to Alison's performances in pre-school, they always turned out the same. The stage would be full of excited three- and four-year-olds, eagerly waving in the direction of their parents' camcorders, and then there would be Alison. She was the one standing in the middle of the fray, hands tightly at her side, eyes nervously scanning the crowd. When she was us, she would give us a small wave, the type of gesture you'd make if you were desparately trying to avoid attention. To call her a wallflower would be stretching the truth.

And so we sat in the auditorium of her elementary school expecting more of the same. We were in the front row, naturally, and Alison was no more than ten feet away from us. She actually waved and blew us a kiss. Then the music started, and everything changed. Leslie turned to me and asked, "Who is that girl?"

Their first song was richly choreographed (everything short of jazz hands), and Alison was grooving right along with the rest of her class, leaning to the left, leaning to the right, etc., etc. Sure, she wasn't workin' it like the boy next to her, a five-year-old Bob Fosse who made me feel like I was the only person in the audience -- the mark of a true star -- but I'd like to think that there was a sublime genius in the subtlety of Alison's performance. You're not trying to scare people away, after all.

Anyway, as Alison was flawlessly sliding from one move to the next, it was hard for me not jump up and give her a standing ovation right in the middle of the song. Our daughter -- was doing it! She was singing (a first) and dancing (a miracle), and I couldn't have been more proud. I thought back to an elementary performance of my own, probably also in kindergarten. It was the spring concert, and there was one song that I was absolutely dreading. There was a line that went something like, "...and then all the little fishies shake their hoochie-koochie hips," and we, of course, were supposed to shake our hoochie-koochie hips. I hated it. So we sang the song, shook the hips, and the crowd laughed. At age five, I didn't know the difference between "laughing with" and "laughing at," so I assumed the worst and was incredibly embarrassed. For the longest time I had assumed that this traumatic experience had somehow been grafted onto a gene I passed down to Alison, but she proved me wrong on this night. Our Alison was a star!

I really need to do something about the length of these posts. Perhaps an editor?

Comments

[Leslie]

OMG, you are so hilarious! The description of Mrs. Doubtfire is too, too much. The face of a frying pan!

Querido, thank you for making me laugh. Every single day. I am so blessed. Really and truly.