A week ago Friday, Julie took Clara off for her state-mandated kindergarten readiness testing. We are pleased to tell you that the state of Minnesota thinks Birdie is ready for kindergarten. But Birdie herself is not so sure. The night before the readiness testing, after reading to the bambini, Julie told Clara that they would be visiting with some people the next day who would be playing some games with her to make sure she was ready for kindergarten not this fall, but next fall. And Birdie burst into tears and said she didn't want to go to kindergarten. Ruh roh Raggy.
Julie asked why, and Clara tearily informed her and Joe that she wouldn't know anyone, and wouldn't have a best friend. Well. Put like that, who would want to go to kindergarten? Julie told Clara that actually, we didn't yet know if Clara wouldn't know anyone, but that if she didn't, there was no doubt about it, that was tough stuff. Julie has done the new kid in school bit plenty of times and so she knows first hand that while good things like a capacity for resiliency are born of it, it's not very much fun at the time. So we acknowledged that if Clara did not know anyone come kindergarten, it was going to be a little rough. But, the next thing we acknowledged was that there are people we love know that we once didn't know at all. Julie told Clara about when she met Graham and Connor's Mommy Ms. Sara, who she didn't know, but has now known for almost fifteen years! Joe reminded Clara that he didn't know Karlis until he went to kindergarten. That was when Julie told Clara that if a year or so from now we needed to practice what to say to new friends, well, we'd do it. That's when Joe piped in and reminded Clara about how he practiced what to say when Aaron said that he didn't want to play at recess on the first day of kindergarten. True. And the second day of kindergarten was the scene of on of Our Hero's greatest acts of bravery to date. And what a little man and big brother sharing that experience with Birdie!
Well, Fans, it was like something out of a Bearenstain Bears book. Birdie had been laying with her head on Julie's chest while she and Joe talked through all of the reasons why it might be true that starting kindergarten might be tough, but also all of the reasons why we knew it was going to be o-kay. And Birdie popped up, sat back, and said, "Thank you, Mommy. You make me feel better."
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