school

I Kinda Miss the Little Monster

Posted on by Beth Hull

It’s been said before. In fact, I say it all the time: Absence makes the heart grow fonder. And I know I just dreamed of quiet, with lots of time to myself, the kind I used to have B. Z. (Before Z). But it’s really quiet.

And when she comes home, she doesn’t necessarily want to hang out with me. It could be she’s burnt out from being around people at school all day. Or I’m just not fun. (Maybe both.) Or she really missed her toys. Yes, that’s it. She does love having adventures with her imaginary friends.

8:15 to 3:15 makes a long day. And I’m typing away, being all productive and so on. Even cleaned the shower this morning!

Well, whatever nostalgia I’m feeling now will surely end next week. No school at all, plus what I’m sure will be a perfectly lovely, without-any-tantrums six-hour drive to my grandmother’s house for Thanksgiving. And then, two days later, the six-hour drive back home.

So, forget all the above. I’m going to enjoy this quiet. No more naps! I need to stay awake and hear how quiet it is.

Z Goes to School

Posted on by Beth Hull

“I don’t want to tell you about that right now.”

That’s what she tells me when I pick her up at school and ask what she did. That and, “Later. I’ll tell you a tiny little bit later.”

If preschool’s going to make her secretive and controlling, then I’m taking her out right now. But I’m certain this is just part of the adjustment, her way of coping and exerting what little control she has over the situation.

Plus, not one hour after she informed me she would tell me about it after her “nap” because at the moment she was too tired to talk, she regaled me with stories of the chickens in the school’s yard and which kids fell down and which ones stayed for lunch and naptime.

Today she cried when I dropped her off, and that was hard. It makes me really glad we’re starting with half days.

The adjustment’s been much smoother for me. I have my little routine (the one I dreamed up before school even started, with a few adjustments), and I’m sticking to it. Each day so far I’ve exercised and followed it up with a (quiet!) shower and two hours of uninterrupted writing time. I’ve gotten a lot of work done on le manuscript…plus another fun story I started over the weekend.

The weirdest part is now I feel like I’ve started a real job, or something. Like, we have to get up and leave every day. At night, I make sure I get to sleep on time so that I’m rested enough to get us out the door the next day. And even though we live in a smallish town, the school-morning traffic is a fierce sight to behold.

Overall, it’s going as well as I’d hoped. Even better, when I hear Z talking about her “close friends at school.”