So the Peanut is six. Six! I looked through the blog archives to see what I've written about her previous birthdays. On her fourth, I shared her birth story; on her fifth, noted that she'd had a wee meltdown the night before about not being four any longer. That seems to be a pattern of hers. She's such an irrepressibly joyous little person, but at times the bitter-sweetness of growing up overcomes her. The other night, saying our goodnights at the close of a typically happy day in Peanutville and some words about looking forward to her birthday, she broke down in tears. She sobbed and sobbed and held me tight. When she could get words out, she said, "I don't want to go to school full day." She's in a half-day kindergarten program, and I guess the major significance of Sixness is that you go to First Grade, and it lasts "all day."
(Our town has a full day K option, but we never considered it. My thinking, in brief, is: heck, she's still little! As long we're making things work without my having a paid job, why not let her play dress-up and read stories in the afternoons, or be out and about with me? People say kids in full day get "ahead" academically and kids in half day will be "behind," but to my mind, that misses the point.)
But a sure sign that the Peanut is about to be ready for something is that she cries and says she's not ready for it. It's as if she clears a lot of anxiety out with a major bout of tears, and then she's good to go. The next day, she said she was actually ready for first grade "right now."
That makes one of us. But I'm really, really proud of her.
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