Kindergarten has Two Ns

This morning Trombone and I attended an hour-long session at our local elementary school, a kind of “introduce your 3 year old to kindergarten, ever so gently and 18 months early” Provincial Government initiative called “Ready Set Learn.” The initiative appears to be geared at increasing pre-school literacy, which I think is funny because I found out about the event from a chance encounter with a flyer tacked to the bulletin board at the library. (Of course, those flyers could have been scattered all over town, it just so happened I saw one at the library.) The funnier part is that they gave us an alphabet puzzle, a foam one with letters that pop out, and it has two “N”s. But hey, free puzzle and free snack and another free book. And we got to meet the kindergarten teachers and see the classroom.

Apparently the school has 500 students. My high school didn’t have that many students. I don’t know why I think a high school should have more students than an elementary school; after all, the former is 5 grades and the latter is 8, including kindergarten, but that was my automatic first thought. Wow! That’s a lot of kids! Yes, sherlock, it is. I guess in my head, the smaller the children are, the fewer there should be? People are bigger, physically, in high school so there should be more of them? It is totally counterintuitive, 8 times over, but there you go. Voila, my brain.

There were three or five or possibly ten moms there who I can already tell are going to confuse me for Trombone’s entire elementary school career. They were all blonde and wearing similar clothing and their daughters were all blonde and wearing similar clothing. I think I’ve met one / all of them at the park before but who can say. I will have to make friends with at least one of them post-haste or I’ll never be able to tell them apart.

Speaking of moms that make your jaw drop, there is one at preschool; two weeks ago she was delightfully, full-termily pregnant, then dad came for a couple weeks and yesterday she showed up with newborn in tow, looking like one of those photoshopped magazine covers where the mom is all gaunt – yet smiley – and they say SHE LOST THE BABY WEIGHT IN TWO DAYS BY EATING CABBAGES. Seriously. I don’t know who to believe anymore because Whatsherfamous Kardashian said “No, I have a paunch, I do not look like that magazine cover,” yet here is this mortal woman looking better than any magazine cover and right in front of my face. I have never once seen a newborn, eensy weensy sleeping baby be eclipsed by its birthmom who looks like she never even saw a pair of those post-birth mesh knickers let alone considered wearing them.

There was a banner over the door out of the elementary school library. It said, “Have you used your brain today?” I had a quick daydream where the door refuses to let you out of the library if you say no. But then, I guess if you’re walking and not just lying on the ground twitching (or not twitching) you’ve used your brain, right? What a relief. Having used my brain, I intend to rest it for the remainder of the weekend. We all winn!