Cramming for Kindergarten.

Marley started kindergarten last week. And the night before, I got home late from a field hockey parents' meeting to check on Beanie. She was sitting up in bed, writing out the alphabet on a yellow legal pad and checking her results against a practice workbook. It was so adorably earnest. At the top of the page, she had written "I love cats" and "I love to read," and asked, a little anxiously, "Did I spell read right?"

And then I put my arm around her and got to tell her the things that I've always wanted to be able to say to my kids. I said, "Marley, you are a smart little girl. You're a good reader, and you love books, and you do a really nice job writing your letters. But you know what's even more important? You're a hard worker. When something is hard for you, you keep trying it and trying it until you get it right, and that's what makes a good student."

"But what if something's so hard?" she asked.

"Well, Marley," I said, "That's called a challenge. And those are good things to have, because they help you learn, and doing the same easy things over and over can be boring. And you like when things are challenging in gymnastics or when you're doing a puzzle, right?"

I called Danielle to tell her about Marley cramming for kindergarten, and she asked to talk to her, so I brought the phone upstairs. And Marley had moved from her bed to Rudy's. "Oh, hold on," I said, "The kid who's a little nervous about kindergarten is reading her little sister bedtime stories." Then we said things that are the verbal equivalent of rolling our eyes, and we decided together that she would be just fine. Eventually, Marley fell asleep surrounded by her writing practice, books about starting kindergarten, and her backpack and first day of school outfit laid out neatly beside her bed.

The next afternoon, we left for the walk to the bus stop at a quarter to noon. Marley's in afternoon kindergarten, so we're starting a whole new routine involving a pretty punctual, and often early, lunch. By now we know the bus arrives after noon, and so we try to be out the door at twelve o'clock exactly because Beanie's bus stop is down the street and around the corner, and her sidekick Rudy can be a bit of a dawdler. You know how doing anything with a young child takes four to five times longer? Like a quick trip to the grocery store for five things could take fifteen minutes door-to-door for a single adult, but with a kid, it's approximately an hour? Walking past about ten houses, alone, would take me less than two minutes. With Marley, maybe five. WIth Marley and Rudy, at least ten, and more like fifteen.

It sounds like I'm making a big deal out of seven minutes here or there. But that's what my life is made up of these days. Little activities and chores and accomplishments that need to be structured and scheduled in minutes-long increments that can run over into each other and send a whole morning or afternoon into a grumpy little tailspin.

So far we've been early for the bus, but it's only been five days. Soon enough, I just know I'll be racing down the street and waving frantically at the bus. I'll scoop up Rudy Toot and yell for Marley to hurry, her oversized, mostly empty backpack slapping against her back with each step, as the bus shudders to a stop soon after passing the intersection at the end of my street. I just know that once that happens, the odds that it will happen again increase, so I am literally setting the timer when the mac and cheese hits the lunch table. "Okay, ladies. We have about fifteen minutes before we have to leave, so in about ten minutes we need to leave the table and get our shoes on!"

I mean, I should've been up preparing like Marley last week. Writing out variations of the morning schedule on a yellow legal pad. Worried, but deep down, happy about the challenge.