My daughter has an extremely active imagination. She always has. She began talking at a very young age, and so it feels to us that she’s always entertained us with stories and songs. When she was very young we played a sort of Baby Mad Libs game with her, where we told the bulk of a story, letting her fill in the details. As she’s grown older, she’s taken over the role of storyteller for herself, interrupting us more and more often to tell us how she thought a tale should be told, until finally the story became almost completely her own. These days, she spins elaborate tales about anything from her beloved toys’ adventures to fairy-kitty-princesses to her daddy’s co-workers and their various pets.

And naturally, as former English majors and general language enthusiasts (also: nerds), my husband and I are so thrilled that our daughter seems to have such an vibrant inner world. An inner world she loves to share through stories and songs and occasional interpretive dances.

Except. (You knew there had to be an “except,” didn’t you?)

Now she’s in school. For two hours a day. Two hours a day that she’s not in my presence, and, as I’ve mentioned here already, that’s really very hard for me. I…like to know  things. I ask a lot of questions to try to piece together a version of her school life for myself, because I’m nosy, sure, but also because I’m her mama and I desperately want my baby to be ok at school.

I want to know whether she’s interacting with her teachers and the other kids or if she’s sitting alone in a corner (telling stories to herself.) Is she respectful as we’ve taught her to be, or is she running rampant, poking other kids in the eye. (shudder. See what I do to myself?) I wish so much that I could be a fly on the wall, and I’ve cursed the fact that in this technological age classrooms aren’t automatically equipped with webcams so the parents can see the kids and put their own childhood-baggage-based fears to rest. (I mean really. Is it too much to ask? Consider my feelings, School. Privacy laws schmivacy laws.)

So I ask a lot of questions. I can’t help it. I’ve tried to rein it in, I have. And I’m fairly successful…but even at 65% intensity, there are still a LOT of questions being fired her way (gently, subtly, nonchalantly, LOVINGLY, of course.) And this is where the same story telling skills I’ve enjoyed and celebrated so much come back to haunt me…because as far as I know, my daughter attends school with one thousand other kids (in her classroom alone), hangs upside down on the jungle gym in the mornings (she’s usually afraid to even go near a ladder), walks to the library every single day by herself (where there’s only one lonely book on a really big shelf), and has access to a caterpillar playground, complete with leaves to eat, a cocoon to crawl inside of, and wings to wear when you become a butterfly (and are flying around on the swings.)

I go back and forth between annoyance at being thwarted and admiration for her attention to detail. And actually, I kind of hope that last part about the butterflies is true. 

Posted by Shannon, a Dot-arilla Blogger

Now that my daughter’s in school every morning, my 14-month-old (Sully) and I have suddenly found ourselves with some time alone, just the two of us. For me, this has been a major perk of sending my oldest off to [Pre]Kindergarten.

Save a few evening or weekend hours here and there, Sully and I haven’t had much time to ourselves. I’ve always felt a bit guilty about that—his sister had an entire three years of my full attention—but I suppose that’s just the way of things for second (and third, and fourth…) children. They come into the world sharing.

There are benefits to that, to be sure—he’s already got a built-in playmate, and he’s already well on his way to understanding the intricacies of the sharing process. He’s constantly attempting things his sister hadn’t even dreamed of at his age, all because he’s got an example, someone to look up to.

But still. There’s something to be said for some quality one-on-one time for each kid. I do think it’s very important—ideally they’d each get a bit of my (and my husband’s) undivided attention each day—I just…haven’t been very good at implementing that. I let life get in the way, I suppose, just rolling along until I wake up one day and my oldest is in school and my youngest and I are in a room together, alone, staring at each other.

Alright, so it’s not been that dramatic, exactly. But we have had a bit of an adjustment period. Sully still spends some time each morning looking for his sister, repeating her name in a rather (adorably) confused sort of way. We’re quickly settling in, however. Finding our own routine, just as his sister and I did when she was small. We’re getting to know each other in a new way…and making up for lost time, I think.

Let me tell you though: you should hear the squeals when he spies his sister heading toward our car after school. I may be his mama, but I think she’s his very favorite.

Posted by Shannon, a Dot-arilla Blogger