Austin's Last Day at Miner Elementary

Today is Austin’s last day of Pre-K 4. He has had an incredible two year’s under the tutelidge of shy but super sharp Mrs. Mukendi and with her heroic assistant, the indomitable Mrs. Keeno. These two were beyond our expectations. In their classroom, Austin has learned and flourished. At the parent teacher conference a few weeks ago, Mrs. Mukendi didn’t have much to report other than that “Austin has been a dream to have in the classroom.” She showed us his development curve – from writing his name in the beginning of the year to reading and writing on his own by the end of the year. He is a sponge and soaked up every single moment thrown at him: from games in PE with Mr. Robinson to neighborhood walks with his class to share time on Wednesday’s.

Miner has been a haven for Austin and a place where he has thrived. His best friend Robert left in January, but his other good friends remained, including D’Zae, JaMarcus, Meko and Kamora. He knows everyone in the school and they know him. “Good morning, Austin” rings out as we walk through the halls. They had a Pre-K graduation that literally played pomp and circumstance as the kids paraded in to receive their “diplomas,” and we had inspirational speeches from Principal Jackson and other school leaders.

We haven’t told him that he’s not returning. We thought it would be awkward and confusing to do so before the end of the school year. Plus, we are still processing it ourselves. He got into Mundo Verde through the DCPS lottery. Mundo is a very good, Spanish immersion school. It’s an opportunity that in the end we decided we could not pass up. This has brought about deeply conflicted feelings for both of us.

I have been attending Kindred discussion group for the past two months. This group has facilitated discussions about racial and socio-economic inequities and how those impact the dynamics at Miner. It is the group I have been waiting for. It has been incredibly eye-opening. I could and should blog about it. We had a true mix of parents, from 20-something black women who live in the projects to upper middle class white couples who travel the world. We all came with an earnest interest and attempt to unravel this extremely difficult issue and made progress. The Kindred group helped the (notoriously white parent-dominated) PTO form an Equity Committee and a single black mom has been elected vice president of the PTO. Progress!

Anyway, the pace of progress at Miner is good, but ultimately we decided that Austin needs more. He was way out in front of most of the students in his class. He is very smart and needs to be challenged. I hope Mundo doesn’t take it too far in the other direction…

Last month, I picked Austin up from aftercare and Ms. "T" had him and two others playing reading word games. That evening I picked up a Bob’s book and asked Austin to read it. To my surprise, he read the whole thing. It was slowly and with some prompting, but he was officially reading! Yesterday, we said goodbye to Ms. T, a young woman who decided to take matters into her own hands and design her own curriculum for aftercare (which previously had very light instruction and mostly free play.) Each day when we picked up Austin, Ms. T gave a report on the day (again, my guess this was through her own initiative and not required.) “We practiced our writing today.” “Today, friends made smoothies with blueberries, strawberries and spinach.”

We hugged her. We hugged Mrs. Mukendi and Mrs. Keeno. We will miss them and remember them always. Now, however, it is off to Kindergarten!

5 is big boy stuff

Today Austin received his monthly book selection from Dolly Parton's Imagination Library Program. For the past several years, Austin has been a beneficiary of this wonderful program that gives away millions of books to kids around the country.

I opened the book entitled, "Look Out Kindergarten, Here I Come!" with Austin nestled next to me, and paused to read a message pasted inside before the title page. It began, "Dear Imagination Library Graduate, My how time flies...This may be your last book from my Imagination Library..." And that's as far as I got, because I immediately started crying. Austin was unfazed.

Austin turned 5 on the 21st while we had a dream vacation in St. Lucia. By the time the day rolled around, we were all sort of over it. We had a lovely birthday party for him with Professor Fizzwiffle, the Magician and cupcakes with his class at school. We were well into our daily beach routine during his actual birthday. He played for hours and hours on the beautiful picturesque beach in Marigot Bay and the stunning white sands and brilliant (and I mean brilliant) blue waters of Reduit Beach in Rodney Bay. We had daily cocktails: Dirty Bananas for Hayden and me and (virgin) Pina Coladas for Austin. Hayden attempted to have a cake delivered on his birthday by our hotel, which came at 10pm on the day after we had all gone to bed. Austin did not miss it, however, because his day had been filled with beach and pool time and cocktails.

St. Lucia, with its warm winds and winding roads was a birthday present to us all.

This birthday season did seem significant, however. It is a nice divisible number, sure, but more importantly it felt like the official passage from baby to boy. We kept saying things like, "now that you're a big boy, you will...read, swim, stop with the pacifier, dress yourself, stop tantrums, etc etc..."

To Austin's credit, he gets it. The kid is sharp as a tack and is rising to the occasion of big boy status in most ways (except for his "baby"). We're currently reading Harry Potter, which is way above his attention span, and yet he follows the intricate plot and lack of pictures with relative ease. He likes to use big words, like "predict" and phrases like, "mommy, I'm embarrassed on you" How is a 5 year old already embarrassed of his parents??

For Hayden's sake, I should also mention that the kid knows and can demonstrate every tennis swing, from volleys to slices to serves .

I got it back together and we finally read the last story from Dolly. It was ok. Austin liked it. But more importantly, Austin expects to be read to and soon to read as part of his daily ritual. This service and many others offered in DC to families are so critical. We are lucky and privileged to have had this and so many opportunities. But as I often say living in DC, this is a no-brainer: all young children deserve these same opportunities. Ok, St. Lucia is a bit on the ridiculous end of the scale, but thanks to Dolly, many children will have one of the most enriching opportunities of Austin's life: books.

Turkey Trot 2018

Austin loves to run, just like his dad. 

He has a natural ability and, importantly, an inclination for running. He has done a few dashes, including this year’s 50 yard dash. We were worried that his perfect record of 1-0 would be in trouble, but we believe that he tied for first this year – a photo finish would be needed to determine the victor. In any case, Austin ONLY likes to win, so we’ve been talking with constantly about not winning and just doing your best. This discussion has been incessant with mild to medium success. At least now, he tells us he understands. However, when it comes down to it in the heat of the moment, he inevitably crumbles under the weight of his self-imposed perfection and has a meltdown.

Interestingly, the tie at the dash was acceptable. We'll take it...

So, then it was time for the turkey trot.

I was, as per usual, nervous. This time it was, because the turkey “trot” was actually a 1-mile race. That’s a long race for a 4-year old. The weekend before we practiced and Austin made it twice around Lincoln Park without much effort. I mean, he walked a bit, but my concern was for his temperament and stamina, not his time trial splits.

So I thought, ok, he can do it.

The Turkey Trot was on Thanksgiving Day, thus I was not planning to attend, because I was cooking my favorite meal for 12 people. It was up to Hayden to keep Austin alive, uh, I mean, go and enjoy the race with Austin.

On the morning of the race, it was bone-chillingly cold. 28 degrees and very windy. This was a wrinkle I had not anticipated. We decided the night before that it would simply be too cold and too irresponsible for Austin to race. But of course, the fun of it all nagged at us. When I remembered he inherited long underwear from his friend Kobe, we decided to go for it. Layers upon layers were added to this kid. We found heavy gloves we forgot we had for him and a face mask that he swore he wouldn’t wear until he stepped outside. And, off they went and back to the kitchen I went to prepare the bird and fret about frost bite.

An hour later, I get a text of a red-faced but contented little boy clutching a medal, replete with a picture of a turkey wearing sneakers. They did it! And there’s even a video I need to figure out how to upload.

My boys, the runners both!

PS The Thanksgiving meal was great too. The menu was:

Turkey and stuffing

Homemade cranberry sauce

Roasted Winter vegetables with Z’aatar spices

Italian Brussels Sprouts with lemon zest and parmesan cheese

Pumpkin pie

Peanut butter and Hershey kiss cookies

Others brought:

Mom’s famous mac and cheese

Sweet potato and apple casserole

Jodi’s famous green bean and fried onion casserole

Banana bread

Mashed potatoes

 

 

T-ball for the Win!

I think I’ve found my calling: T-ball coach. We signed Austin up, hoping he was now old enough to enjoy it (unlike soccer at age 2…)

About a week before it started, an email asking for volunteers went out and I said I’d be happy to help. Translation: I was assigned head coach of the Detroit Tigers.

Austin and I had a blast! He loved hitting line drives and learned that he could “pull the ball.” He was one of the best of the bunch, alongside little Benji, who’s dad brought him his own bat for practice. I made up drills and learned that some wouldn’t work with 4-year olds. For example, lining everyone up to sprint to the cone at the far end led to various crashes, stumbles, and tears, and so it was better to split them up a bit and do a controlled release of each runner. 

I made the real-time decision that throwing partners should be parents and not other kids. Several near misses occur when projectiles, I mean balls, are launched by 4-year olds. Similarly, batting practice involved all parents on deck. I helped with each kid’s swing and form, we needed 2-3 parents to hold the other kids in a line far enough back so that the child swinging didn’t hit someone, and James #2’s mom had to hover close enough to him to catch his bat when he flung it with reckless abandon, but not too closely as to get her head knocked off. We needed a parent on each base to direct traffic and we needed to move homeplate away from the T as to not cause yet another opportunity for injury. Phew.

Our “game” consisted of one inning where everyone got to hit. Austin figured out that if he went up to bat last during games, he could hit a home run and run all of the bases. This was because each kid was allowed to run to first base and advance bases one at a time until the last kid hit and brought everyone home. I let him do it every time, promising myself that if another kid caught on to this boon I would make the switch, but no one did. At the end of our “game” I gathered everyone around and brought hands in for a great big tiger roar, and then on to snack time, which was a highlight for us all.

Teamwork for Austin and for the other gaggle of 4-year old boys and one girl was still elusive, but for the most part our second foray into organized sports went well.