A Kid's Point of View: Kindergarten Screening

I have a very good long term memory.  I can remember things very vividly from my childhood, clear back to when I was probably 2 or 3 years old.  I think this is one of the reasons I understand kids more than some people do (sometimes, not all the time). 

When I went in for my kindergarten screening at age five, I walked into a gym with tables all around the perimeter.  The parents and their children had to wait up on the "stage" I believe.  Now this you'd think, especially if you were a teacher, may be a little intimidating to small children who have never been to school.  I had gone to preschool but I don't think I'd ever been in a gym and certainly never a school as massive as the one I went to.  My family never went to basketball games or anything like that.  I had never seen such a strange place in my life.  Each table had an adult, each of them a stranger, sitting behind it or beside it with a test for each child to pass.  At one station, a lady sat with pictures in a flip book for me to identify.  I can tell you to this day that one of those pictures, she told me, was a knife.  It did  not look like any knife I had ever seen.  I could draw it for you and you'd agree, it did not look like a knife.  She and my mom looked at each other as I stared at that card blankly, racking my brain about what it was.  My mom sighed, "She knows what that is...."  I thought, "Um, no I don't."  I could see that the fact I could not tell them what it was worried them.  The lady told me, "It's a knife."  I still stared at it.  It had no sharp edges or a handle, nothing to make it look like a knife. 

I remember Mr. Handwerk, my soon-to-be gym teacher and track coach (who is now incidentally the Mayor of my small hometown), sitting beside a table in a blue track suit.  Another strange thing I probably had never seen.  He wanted me to dribble a foursquare ball.  Do what?  He demonstrated.  I stared blankly.  Why should I even attempt such a thing?  I think I remember the ball rolling across the gym as soon as it left my hands. It's not that I couldn't, it was just something I had never done or thought to do (thanks Dad).

A few things that I did in that kindergarten screening landed me in a perception class.  I couldn't cut with scissors, I couldn't dribble a ball, and I didn't know what a knife was.  I was also incredibly shy, and the kindergarten screening itself scared the bejeebees out of me.  So my friend Stacey and I (also a lot like me, shy and intimidated by the screening) ended up in this perception class with some pretty um, developmentally delayed children.  At one point, the sweet tutor who worked with us every week just started letting Stacey and I play computer games while she worked with the kids who really needed it.

And the computer games weren't actually computers.  They were some kind of machines with cards in them...lol...a la Flintstones...I am old. 

I tell this story because I believe a lot of times, the misbehavior, shyness or awkwardness we see in kids occur for pretty good reasons.  If you see a kid acting in a way that you know is unusual for them or they suddenly seem sad, scared, angry, frustrated, etc., there could be a logical reason.  Think of how the little kids feel and consider their perspective. 

More Maryn Says

We were singing that song that goes:
Mommy:  Did you milk my cow?
Maryn:  Yes, Ma'am!
Mommy:  How did you milk her?
Maryn:  Squish, squish, squish!
Mommy:  Did the milk taste good?
Maryn:  Yes, Ma'am!
...and so on.  After the song, I asked her, "Where does milk come from?"
Maryn replied, "Breasts."


We were coming home from the movie theater where Maryn had eaten lots of candy and fruit snacks.  She was begging for more on the way home, so I told her, "Maryn, you can't eat gummies all day or else you will get holes in your teeth!"

Maryn replied, very dramatically and with all the attitude of a 14 year old, "Look!  Ahhhh," opening her mouth wide, "I have. NO.  HOLES.  IN.  MY.  TEETH."

Maryn loved her first movie.  We (John, Maryn and I) saw Tangled while Josiah went to a babysitter's house.  She sat fairly well considering she's a two year old, but she did want to talk almost the whole time.  She seemed to understand the movie pretty well.  She knew the "mother" was a bad woman and I told her she wasn't really Rapunzel's Mommy.  So she went through the entire movie shouting, "HER MOMMY!  She lost her mommy!"  When the family reunited at the end, she shouted, "She found her Mommy!  That's her mommy!  And that's her girl!"

I loved seeing Tangled with my own little girl.  It is a great mother-daughter movie.  Two thumbs up!

Where were you in 1998?

I was a junior in high school. I was running cross country at this time of year and I was having a blast with all my new friends at Wooster Grace Brethren Church.

I pretty much thought I was awesome, I think (but I hated myself too, I don't get it). I spent a lot of time trying to be perfect. Perfect hair, perfect clothes, perfect face, perfect body (it was a good body! I miss it a little bit!).

I had just found out I had mono around this time of year, and I started to lose too much weight. So I ate a lot of chocolate and Oreos. Those were good times. Fortunately I was mature enough to realize 98 pounds wasn't healthy and forced myself to eat even when I didn't feel like it.

I worked at Das Dutch Kitchen, a little Amish restaurant in Ohio. My mom was a manager. I liked working for her. But when I got mono, I started doing a not very good job and had to take a break. Especially after I dropped a tray of ice waters down some guy's back. Ooopsie. I love that place to this day.

I loved this time of year and going back to school. I loved school. I always kept a roll of Ritz crackers in my backpack so that I could keep my weight on since eating full meals wasn't possible with mono. I ate them during our ecology class with Mr. Burkholder.

I also had Mr. Schuefler (sp?), the best math teacher ever for my Informal Algebra Class. Yep. The class for slow kids. But he was patient and taught us well. And I got As.

I also had French III (with a great teacher, Mme. Miller, a Muskie grad), American Literature (The Scarlet Letter-fantastic, Huckleberry Finn-so much fun, and Red Badge of Courage-uck), a history class with Mr. Bardall (another favorite teacher who got me to speak out in class, thank you!), and then of course ecology and physiology--soooo borrrrrring.

I loved wearing my letter jacket, checking myself out in any mirror I could find, obsessing over boys, and planning out my future (kids' names, wedding plans, house plans, etc.).

I had these fantastic clogs with butterflies on them.

I was a silly girl. Where were you in 1998?

Bittersweet

I apologize for all the blog posts. I know I'm overwhelming some of you. But I had to write about our morning visit to my old elementary school. It is Alumni Weekend here in Orrville, Ohio as well as my ten year reunion. Lots of festivities are happening here in this small, small town (population about 8,500) so I am seeing a lot of people I know. Today they opened up the elementary school I attended for a final tour (K-6). It will be torn down soon. Torn down. My sweet, sweet memories of that school will never be relived by any other human.

This was my first grade classroom:


Mrs. Conway was my teacher, and she was like a dream. She had long blonde hair way down her back. She was young and cheerful. I honestly don't think she did anything really super special, but she obviously loved us. She told us jokes and taught us tricks. She let us braid her hair in tiny little braids.

Here's the little sink in the classroom. Can you imagine a little Amanda washing her hands here?

Here is the reading table we used to sit at for reading groups, braiding and talking. Laughing a lot. Reading in our reading textbooks titled "Rockets," "Surprises," and "Footprints." I went back and bought them when they were discontinued and sold for a quarter.
Here is the loudspeaker where, while we were lined up by our little lockers, every single day someone in the office called:

"Mrs. Conway?"
"Ye-es?"
"You may bring your class to lunch now."
"Thank you!"

And we would be on our way, walking in our straight lines with our pink lunch tickets that had been stored in a yellow box marked 1-C (1 for first, C for Conway). I'd always eat with my best friend Staci, and we would play with the other girls in the class at recess. We'd wear skirts every single day and fight over C.J., the cutest boy in our class.

Here's Maryn, sitting on the steps in the cafeteria/gymnasium, where I used to sit before Kindergarten each day. We had to line up on these stairs and wait until 8:40 to go to our classrooms. I had a white backpack my mom's friend Kim made for me with stenciled animals or something like that on it.

At indoor recess, Mrs. Conway let us fill Tupperware tumblers with water and "paint" on the chalkboard. Or the boys would pretend to be dogs and the girls would be cats, and we would scoot around on our knees chasing each other. She also had a great set of blocks in her classroom. She was the best teacher. Because she loved us so much.

Mrs. Conway became Mrs. Jackie Orr a few years after I graduated from elementary school. I went back to teach with her one day my junior year of college, which was such a privilege and honor. Sadly, she passed away at a very young age from cancer just a year or two after I visited her in her classroom.

But her memory lives on, and not because she bought us chocolates or had the very best lesson plans. But because she loved us.

Baby, how you've grown.

I was thinking about the surgery that I had when I was 22 to remove a large ovarian cyst, and I decided to look up my blog posts about it. I love to have a blog that I've been writing for nearly 8 years. Read what was going on in my life in December, 2003. I can't imagine being this young girl, with so much inexperience. How scared she must have been! But God got her (me) through it. And He'll get me through lots more.

Every once in awhile, I repeat in my head, "I am having an operation." It seems weird. "I am having an operation." IV's, anesthesia, drowsiness, pain, nervousness, fear, prescriptions, vicodin...This stuff usually happens to other people. Not me.

"I am going to Chicago on Saturday." Wow. That's weird. I can't imagine being there. "I am going to fly on a real plane for the first time on Saturday." Hmm. Nice! I'm excited. Strange. That sort of thing I never do. Other people do that sort of stuff. Not me.

"I am going to New Zealand in a month." Whoa. Isn't that weird? I certainly can't imagine it. "I will be teaching, I will be visiting Sydney, I will be riding a bike to work, I will fall asleep to the sounds of the ocean, I will meet a woman I've never met before and I will live in her home, I will be away from everything and everyone I know for three months..." Funny how strange that is. I'm not supposed to do that sort of thing. Other people are. Not me.

So there's a lot of things coming up in the next month, wouldn't you say? Things that I can't really imagine happening but inevitably will happen. Crazy. Things that aren't supposed to happen to me, but they are. I feel like...I'm living someone else's life, you know? Or watching a movie. Or the main character of a book. Strange.

One of the saddest days of my little life

I didn't know it then, but it was at a yard sale where my mom talked me into selling my most prized possessions. My Fisher Price dollhouse was one of them. I still remember opening and shutting the door, putting the little people in and out of their little holes in the chairs, in and out, because they fit so perfectly every time, just like a little autistic child might do.

I remember the lady who bought my Fisher Price dollhouse. She seemed reluctant to take it. She knew I'd regret it someday. She looked at me and asked, "Are you sure?" at least twice. I said yes. It was five dollars in my pocket. How could I resist?

As I was looking for children's toys on ebay since Goodwill Naples is a big bunch of jerks, I decided to check out Fisher Price. All the memories came flooding back. How I loved that garage. What would it be like to have a garage? Collecting parsley at Ponderosa to serve as shrubs around my little house. Pretty much my whole life revolved around gathering little items to pair with my little house and my little people.

Then I found something I had forgotten. The little town. Again, I loved opening and shutting the doors. So perfect, such a nice pleasant sound. Maybe I really was a bit autistic. The mailbox came with little plastic letters to mail and there was a mail truck, too. Ah! Such good, good times.

I also found the little playground my cousin, Drew, had. Again, I loved the way the little people fit in the holes. But on the playground, you could spin the people out on the merry-go-round or bounce them out on the springy bouncy toys. Then they would vomit or have to go to the hospital. You could press a button to make the people go down the slide, and the little people could climb (well, bounce...no legs, no arms) the little tree stumps up to the slide. And they fit so perfectly on those little stumps.

I love toys! And I keep having the strange urge to open and shut those doors. Open and shut. Open and shut.

Back to Childhood

Now that John and I are super thrifty (we were already pretty thrifty before), we planned some very cheap meals this week. Guess where I got my ideas?

I thought back to my childhood...what did my mom feed me when she and my dad had a little kid? What did my aunt Cathy fix for dinner when she and Kent had just had their first baby? And so here is our menu for the week:

Soup and Grilled Cheese
I chose the Mrs. Grass chicken noodle soup that comes in a box and probably has tons of MSG. But it was very cheap and it's one of my childhood favorites. No one makes grilled cheese like my mom. What in the world does she do to make it so good? I've never figured it out. We have to make our grilled cheese with wheat bread, which is definitely not nearly the same. But it'll do. And we don't use butter or Country Crock like she does. It's Smart Balance spread instead. We may need to eat cheap like our parents did, but we can make some healthier choices.

Spaghetti
My mom and grandmother got off really easy with this one, because it was always my favorite thing for dinner and practically the cheapest thing in the world to eat. We make it with no meat but get multigrain noodles with extra protein. Score.

Tater Tot Casserole and French Cut Green Beans
This was my favorite thing that Cathy made, and my uncle Kent would trick me into eating gallons of green beans. Since I have been pregnant, I suddenly can't stand fresh or frozen vegetables and can only muster eating vegetables from a can, which is repulsive to John and kind of makes me feel guilty now that I know how bad canned vegetables are. But, it's either canned veggies or none at all. I finally found a recipe for tator tot casserole because Cathy insists she doesn't really have a recipe. I need recipes. I can't just guess.

Totino's Pizza
Not a childhood favorite, but John's favorite cheap meal. These frozen pizzas cost $1.00. They were on sale this week for that price, but usually they're only 1.20 or something. Great deal. They taste like elephant ears with pizza toppings. Not the healthiest choice, but we're going for cheap here, folks. It may be a good idea for those of you that have starving teenage boys at home. :)

MY FAVORITE!
John hates tuna and is kind of appalled by my "Let's eat macaroni and cheese everyday for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!" attitude lately. So, for lunch this week I am eating My Favorite. That's the title. I ate it for lunch all the time when I was little. It's Kraft Macaroni and Cheese with a can of mushroom soup and a can of tuna. It's good hot or cold or lukewarm and it's good for any meal, any snack, at any time of the day or night. It's the best food in the world.

If you have cheap meal suggestions for next week, please send them my way!