First day report

I keep getting asked for a report on how the first day went.

Actually, I did fine. After those initial sad-happy tears, of course.

But then I realized no one was wondering about me. They're all asking about Victor. Except for that one person who asked and after I told him about the two sets of soiled clothing that came home in Victor's backpack, he kindly interrupted and said, "No, I'm asking about you." You know who you are and thank you.

But for the rest of you, I couldn't for the life of me figure out why all these folks thought I would know how his first day was. You put your kid on the bus, you keep yourself busy for about 7 hours, then you meet the bus and day over. Then I remembered that I'm the old mom who does things the old-school way and all these people are young moms in the helicopter generation. They're used to instant access information about their child. These are the moms who have video cameras to secretly record the babysitter while they're gone and for whom I've had to sit through days of freshman parent orientation meetings at college because they just. can't. let. go.

Which made me remember the modern invention, Seesaw. So I located the icon on my phone to gain that instant access to my child's day.

Only to find that I still had his preschool class on my phone.

So I asked a teen-ager in my house to help me figure out how to put the new classroom on Seesaw. Cause they're closer in age to the parents of kindergartners than I am and they know these things. Unfortunately, they're ready and primed to helicopter their own kids.

Not if I have anything to do with it.

But I digress. You wanted to know about Victor's first day.

His teacher had very nicely provided me with this (sweet?) photo. I think it's for all of us born before Pinterest, who can't possibly start taking cute first-day-of-school photos with this child because Child #1 - Child #8 will get jealous.

And that's it. Nothing else for all you helicopter friends, wanting to know about Victor's day.

I tried going straight to the horse's mouth. Only this horse has an amazing imagination. This is all I've got for you:

He met Scarlett Johansson. Yes, the actress. Yes, at school. No, he has no idea what she looks like but Sing is one of his two favorite movies and he always insists on watching through to the very end, when the descriptive text narrator starts listing the credits. As soon as Scarlett Johansson's name is read, we can turn off the movie. Not before. Every single person who asked about his day, from family to friends, was told that he met Scarlett. Apparently, she made quite an impression on him.

He came home with a band-aid on his calf. When I asked about it, I was told an exciting tale of a large pipe or pillar falling down on him and blood spurting everywhere.

My guess would be a scratched-open mosquito bite.

He said the coolest thing about school (also the thing that surprised him about school) was the beeper ball on the playground. This one could be true. We used to have a beeper ball but the charging connection broke and that was a very difficult day in the King household. So if the school actually provided a beeper ball for the visually impaired child, I'm with Victor - that's cool and surprising.

I was told that his friend, Zachary, didn't make it to school only I know that's not true because I saw a picture of Zachary's parents on Facebook very much enjoying their first child-free day. And because I know that Zachary gave his MomMom the best thing we have to an account of Victor's first day,  "Victor did good. He didn't cry or yell."

I wasn't worried about the crying but the yelling? I do know that Victor has an interesting bus-mate who, in Victor's words is mean and wasn't filling his bucket (kindergarten-speak for not being kind). That's one of the problems with riding the van. You're there because you have behavior issues, but so is everyone else. When I suggested that she probably needed to hear him respond with kind words, he gave me a sample of what he did say. Ummm, pretty sure both she and he got off the van with empty buckets. Let's all say a prayer for that van driver.

All-in-all, if there was no yelling in school, I'd call that a good day. Because Victor-yelling is the kind every student would be going home and telling their parents about. Because that's definitely more sensational than a visit from Scarlett Johansson to a no-name town on the first day of kindergarten!

When I later asked, "If I called your teacher to ask about your day, what would she say?" this question gave him pause. Finally he replied, "Don't ask her if I met Scarlett Johansson."