Summer lessons

The first day of school was Wednesday. That post is coming up. Today I was reflecting on lessons, actual skills learned. In addition to doing multiple dozens of duct tape projects (deserves its own post), Halina learned to sew on a machine.

Here she is at her sewing class. 

She made a pink flannel pillow case for a full-sized bed pillow -- and this for-real skirt!

Then she taught me how to use my machine and we sewed a doll skirt.

(You'll notice this doll also has an awesome duct tape tote.)

Halina also started piano lessons. She's been to two so far. They are small group lessons at the instructor's home. The other girls are 8, too. 

Luke at the lessons. Definitely not a participant.

But he's inspired. Here he is looking a little Schroeder-like and playing a song whose lyrics are "there there, raw blood" sung over and over.

I'm taking guitar lessons. It's nice to have music being made in the house -- even if it's very amateur. Making music has a thrill of joy running through it. So does learning something new.

Super silly siblings

All I wanted was one nice brother-sister photo in nature for the grandparents. One like this first photo, only a wee bit nicer…

So I had to travel down the long road of out-takes, of which this is but a small sampling.

(Okay this one might not be half bad…) 

I think this is where I started saying "Just make your faces look normal."

And they pretty much…did! Phew.

Mother's helper

Halina was a mama's helper for hire this summer. She took care of a little one-year-old every week or so while his mother got some stuff done around the house and while his big sis was in preschool camp with Luke. She even got paid.

Here they are at MCPC today. Halina was watching him at the preschool while his mama led a tour for prospective parents.

He calls her Pina. And he loves her.

Last, last day

Last day ever of preschool. Unlike the post from my daughter's last day, we won't have another last day. This was it. THE last day.

It's really not possible for my brain to fully absorb.

Those teachers were also my teachers.

I wore my ripped-in-the knees jeans for five years. It was okay. It was my co-op preschool mama uniform.

I grew up there, too.

Big feelings were understood there. "Our kids need what they need when they need it," Jolie would sometimes say at parent meetings, quietly blowing my mind. The way Susanna would show gentle, playful respectfulness to every kid during a conflict, sticking with the process until it was resolved, never talking down to or hurrying anyone -- and always with a lightness that was not dismissive or overly permissive -- it was like seeing a whole different way to be. Radical patience, radical kindness.

The kids at that age are like little souls that haven't been covered up. Part of me just wants to keep working there and staying connected to that center of life, where things are what they are.

There's the immense history of the place. Cleaning one day this spring with other parents I found a scrap album with photos of teacher Susana when she was my age, smiling with little kids who are likely now parents themselves. (This summer her granddaughters attended.) And a newspaper clipping from a few years ago showing 3- and 4-year-olds from the school handing roses to paper-skinned, white-headed 80-year-olds during a ceremony in the park. The caption said that the 80 year-olds were from the first class of preschoolers at the school.

I had to go to the kitchen and sob briefly after that.

The routine of coming in each week, putting on the red apron, consulting your job card, sweeping, setting out play dough, running from small pirates, reading books, serving snack, singing Ram Sam Sam. And overhearing things like, "I have a crush on my mom. Yeah, I know what a crush means. It means you really, really, really, really, really like someone."

The friends I've made there. The moms whose kids I've learned how to talk to there, whose kids I love, who have confided in each other and comforted and covered for each other. Dads, too.

The smell of the place, the tidiness, the sweet smallness.

The endless routine, like the sea. So reliable.

The parents who do the impossible to get it all done -- the meetings, the assigned jobs outside and inside the school, all those emails and extras. Then the reward. It's our school. We own it. We're in the trenches together. We get masters degrees (of sorts) by the time we graduate. We did it with our kids.

Maybe Luke could do a third year… He would be one of the oldest going to kindergarten, but he could.

"You can't stay at preschool forever, Mommy," he gently suggested.

Some pictures from the last day.