Last hurrah

Today we had our last hurrah before school officially starts in LAUSD tomorrow. With summer camp over and no child care available, I opted some time ago to just take us all to the beach for the day. So to the beach we went. We are now all sunburnt, sandy, and tired, but happy. Big improvement on my last post, indeed. Fortunately for me those dark nights of the soul don't last long.

Sunday I dutifully went to Target and bought my child a light up Star Wars back pack with a matching lunch bag (box?) and a huge IKEA bag full of school supplies as requested by his new teacher via letter. His new teacher, Ms. S, sent us a letter last week welcoming Bobby to her class and telling us all about herself. Pretty cool, huh?

As with everything in young Bobby's life, I so hope that he has a better time of it than I did. When I was five, my newly divorced mother, older sister and I had moved to the small community outside of Boston called Squantum, and I remember walking the couple of blocks to their elementary school for kindergarten. My teacher was a paunchy middle aged lady named Mrs. P with a wicked Southie accent who once put bruises on my arm grabbing me away from something and told my mother I was "sneaky". Ah, the seventies. She did not care for me and the feeling was mutual. Something tells me Ms. S is going to be a vast improvement.

I went to a kindergarten mixer at a local park on Sunday which was a bit of a disappointment. We were so late due to driving around for twenty minutes looking for parking that by the time we finally dragged our asses a mile from our remote parking spot all the introductions had been made and everyone was standing around talking in small groups with zero interest in meeting or talking to anyone else. I walked up to a woman I recognized from a Facebook moms group and introduced myself but she very rudely blew me off. So I just sat alone and watched the kids play. Eventually a lady came to talk to me who insisted on pronouncing France "Frahnce" but she was pleasant enough so I was willing to overlook that. She said she and her husband are actors. Ah, LA.

Anyway, tomorrow is just two hours at the school with me there the whole time so it hardly counts as a first day - Wednesday is the real deal, with an early start time (8AM), lunch and snack needed, and a full day. 

I promised to make the kids a lemon meringue pie after school. Hopefully it's the beginning of many after school treats in their future. 

So long, summer!