Kindergarten Screening Day

How it's possible that my youngest child is ready to start school in the Fall is hard to wrap my mind around. I know it's cliche, but it seems she was just born yesterday.

What's not cliche, are my fears of her heading off to school. Whereas most mother's are concerned that their little girl won't be able to handle a full day away from home, my fears lie in all the things she might say in a full day away from home.

C is a product of a child born to socially relaxed parents in their mid thirties and joining 3 siblings who are significantly older than she is, one of which is an ornery teenage boy named Z.

We have created a 5 year old who can whip off a "That's what she said" response at frighteningly (in)appropriate times. This is the child who screamed "holy mudder!" when the nurse gave her a shot in the behind last summer. She's the child who stuffed the crotch of her gymnastics leotard with 2 paper towels so she could "look like daddy." I really wish I'd noticed that before her class, rather than after.

It's hard to describe her wardrobe of choice, but it's not uncommon to leave the house with her dressed as Spiderman or wearing a formal dress with ugg boots or her toe shoes. Shoes that literally look like bare feet. My son has a pair of black ones and when he exited a bathroom stall at college, the person standing at the urinal gasped to see a skinny white boy because he was expecting a barefoot black man.

She's also the one in the family who can't say the dog's name, Axel, without it sounding exactly like asshole. She leans out the back door and yells, "Come inside, asshole!" She can frequently be heard saying, "I love my asshole." And when she was describing our family to me last week, she said "We have 6 people and an asshole."

To be perfectly honest, we think it's hilarious. We also live in a home with very little adult supervision, so take that for what it's worth. But I highly doubt that the same school who got offended by our boy saying "Balls" during the NHS speech heard round the world, will appreciate the personality of our 5 old the way we do.

But here we are. Just as Z's graduating....in comes C....(dramatic music of your choice here.) If they didn't appreciate Z's methods of thinking outside of the box, they're in for a real treat with C.

Friday the 13th was the big screening day. That's right. Friday the 13th.

She woke up early, chose a relatively normal outfit if you don't count the toe shoes, strapped on a 20 pound fully stuffed Dora The Explorer backpack and asked, "Is my butt crack showing?"
I knew we were in for a long day.

The checking in process was a blur. They scurried C away before either of us could start crying. (Okay, before I could start crying.) I was taken to the secretary's desk, handed a folder of paperwork and told to take a seat. So I pulled up a chair. Twenty minutes later, as the secretary and I sat across from each other at her desk, I glanced around and noticed the tables set up behind me, full of parents filling out their paperwork. Oh crap. I awkwardly said, "Um, I bet you wanted me to sit over there, didn't you?" She said, "Yep" and continued stapling her papers. Well, aren't we off to a banging start.

I completed the paperwork with the answering of one final question. Would you classify your child as Below Average, Average or Advanced. (Insert me proudly circling Advanced and secretly hoping the secretary was watching....and since I was still sitting at her desk, she probably was.)

Next stop, the nurses station to discuss her medical history. What I wasn't expecting was for her to have seen C's YouTube video of her singing "We don't give a damn for the whole state of Michigan." Well, now that we're fully acquainted....

Two hours later, I was sitting across from one of the Kindergarten teachers, as we reviewed some of C's answers on her tests:

1. What do fish have that make them able to swim? Legs.
2. How many legs does an elephant have? 14
3. What is a shirt made of? Cardboard.
4. What does a Fireman do? Fixes ladders.
5. If today was Saturday, what was yesterday? King's Island.
6. Name something that's round. Diamond.

Where are the questions that pertain to life? Ask her how she likes her coffee. Crap, tell her how you like yours and she'll whip you up a cup. Ask her the address of our condo in Hilton Head and be amazed.

Okay, maybe Advanced was a bit of stretch. If I could go back, I'd cross out all the choices and write in Gifted. Because I have no doubt that a Fireman fixes his ladder if it breaks, my engagement ring has a round diamond and I think changing Fridays to King's Island is nothing short of brilliant.

We left hand in hand and I asked her what she thought.

"That was freakin awesome."

That's what she said....