Because Saturday Morning

Remember Saturday morning?

Your favorite cartoons, your favorite snuggle spots, and your favorite children matching you frame for frame.

Although I'm writing this, and they're not. Instead they're engaged in a different kind of imaginative play, which is great for their executive functions, the management of their highly cognitive processes that includes working memory, reasoning, task flexibility, and problem solving as well as planning and execution. And all the while the TV rolls on.

Maybe your kids don't watch much TV, or any, like ours do every day. That's great. I don't care. Really. Don't judge.

Okay, they do watch a show called Zig and Sharko that is eerily similar to the old Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner Warner Cartoons. And they watch Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse sometimes. Ack. But then they also watch Martha Speaks, Cat in the Hat, Peg + Cat, Arthur and Wild Kratts, all of which are quality PBS educational shows.

The Mama and I grew up on TV and we turned out okay without violent tendencies or melted goo for brains. Sure I've seen the research, but we read to them lots, and they read lots, and we play with them lots, and they play with each other lots, and we all go outside for lots of experiential and physical fun and adventure, including Beatrice going to martial arts (which she loves still). I promise.

Back to Saturday morning. For some of us, Saturday mornings were (and are still) as sacred as reverent self-serving spirituality, a soft space of forgiving nirvana where our minds can meld with animated escapism and storytelling bliss, all without judgment, sometimes learning, sometimes not.

I remember as it it were...today.

And Saturday morning today for us, where old is new again, is where we can now pick and choose what the girls see (and they can and do too) because of our controlling the programming universe with magical devices and broadband portals. In addition to the above examples, there are also Schoolhouse Rock, The Magic School Bus, The Muppets and more. Plus, most of the Disney classics.

But now are the days of synchronized school girls, with Bea in kindergarten everyday and Bryce back in preschool three days per week. This school-bound book-learnin' week-to-week speed of light journey has only just begun, and for the girls (and us, because work doesn't disappear), we'll forever hold on to the weekend mornings as a critical free-range entertainment time.

Because Saturday morning. Sigh.

Otherwise Known As Kindergarten, Day One

The first day finally arrived. We watched as she put her new backpack on proudly, full of her favorite things.

We watched as she hung her backpack on her labeled hook outside her class, the butterflies quite visible on her face.

We watched as her new teacher pinned her name tag to her shirt, asking what her name was and telling her something about the new class.

We watched as she sat on the floor, newly assigned book in her hands, while her new classmates gathered in and around her with their new books.

We watched and waited for any tears, any sign that her discomfort would spill into her legs springing her to the Mama's open arms.

We watched as she talked with new friends about the books they held, comparing notes and context from other books they had at home.

We watched as she looked up at us and smiled, still a little unsure, but mostly comfortable in her new environment.

The weeks and days leading up to this one were filled with ebbs and flows of receding fear and growing confidence, especially the latter which came from her weekly martial arts class we starting earlier in the summer.

In fact, the months and years leading up to this day were filled with a developing above-normal intellect, and due to the auditory sensitivity and earlier delays she's experienced since early on, a thankfully consistent "other" developmental progression.

We all couldn't have done it without the loving support of all the teachers at Bridges to Kinder as well as our school district's speech and occupational therapists. 

We watched and waved, teary-eyed and proud, knowing Bea's journey has only just begun, and there will be many trials and triumphs ahead (with Bryce not too far behind).

The Mama and I walked away arm in arm, leaving Bea in her new world, otherwise known as kindergarten, day one.

“And it's noisy up there
(Noisy up there)
It rocks me like a mother
Copernicus and Fortune's Wheel
Plato, Mengele and the New Deal
And it's noisy up there
(Noisy up there)
It rocks me like a mother…”

—Ben Folds, “The Sound of the Life of the Mind”