Kindergartenitis and Other Afflictions

Aislyn’s second dose is scheduled for today—at Rite Aid, not Somersworth Walmart. Still upset about that whole exchange.

She still has a cough, but she tested negative for COVID, so they can’t give me shit this time.

I have 10 points left for the day. I got up in the middle of the night. It’s okay, I’m tracking, that’s the most important thing. I even tracked the little dehydrated marshmallows Aislyn gave me. The only thing I didn’t track was a tiny piece of frozen pancake I tried, just to see how they tasted, their consistency, etc. Otherwise, my plan is to track everything that goes in my mouth.

Aislyn is full of vim and vigor this morning. She brought out the bucket of cat toys and dumped them all over the living room floor.

“You’re gonna have to pick those all up, you know,” I said.

“Don’t worry, Mama, I got this,” she says. She cracks me up. Then she counted by tens while picking them up.

She’s really a good kid, a sweet little girl. She likes to test us, but she’s five, she’s going to do that. Desmond did.

She’s got what I used to call kindergartenitis when I taught preK. The 5-year-olds who were getting too big for their breeches and challenging us left and right. She’s bored as hell and ready for big school. Academically and socially, anyway.

Functionally, I’m not so sure. The accidents. I think she has more control than she lets on. I think it’s behavioral. So I’m praying if she’s still having them at home, it won’t happen at school. I can’t bear the embarrassment for her, although it does happen sometimes. It must, or why would they request an extra set of clothes?

Still, we should probably talk to the school nurse about it, so she knows and can be a support behind the scenes if necessary. She’s a very nice lady.

And if it’s behavioral, that’s super concerning, too. It compels me to ask myself, what are we doing that might be causing this? How can we get it under control?

Socially, she’s certainly ready for school. She was born ready. She’s the random extrovert in a family of introverts. Although at this point it could be argued that Desmond is much more of an extrovert than Derek or myself. He’s very well-respected by his peers, according to his teacher, and he seems to practice his standup sometimes in class.

Of course, I think Derek may be slightly more extroverted than he thinks he is, too. But he does always score on the introvert side of the Myers-Briggs, so I don’t know. He might work hard at seeming as extroverted in social situations as he does.

He might just seem more extroverted to me because of how introverted I am. He’s certainly not like Katey in high school. Of course, few people I’ve ever known are that extroverted. Katey is an extreme. I’m the opposite extreme. Derek might be moderately introverted. He’s rarely going to be the life of the party or the center of attention, but he’s a typical, functionally social adult.

I am much less introverted in adulthood than I was as a child, I think? But it’s always there. Especially in new situations or in my default state. I work very hard to be social at all. It’s exhausting at times.

I have difficulty with small talk when I’m nervous. I get tongue-tied and blushy, and depend on the other person to carry the conversation. Hopefully that person is an extrovert. If you know me, you’ve seen this.

My friend Lori points me out to others as “the socially awkward one.” She is not wrong.

Anyway, I assumed two introverts would probably have introverted children. I never expected to have a class comedian and a social butterfly. I hope they stay that way, for their sake. Being as introverted as I was is an extremely painful way to go through your childhood. There were entire school years where I had only one friend, and one year I had no friends at all. Middle school. The worst time not to have friends.

I got a lot of writing material out of it, though, which, someday, I hope to share with the world.