We enrolled our second child for kindergarten tonight. I wasn't as emotional about it as I was a year ago enrolling the first one....I was pretty much a basket case that night. But I expect to snivel a lot as the first day of school approaches.
Something I noticed right away was that the teachers who knew M all remarked about the fact that P was following in his sister's path...and I had a flashback to my own school experience, also in a small town, and as the last of four kids (you know who you are out there) being asked on the first day of school almost every year, "oh, are you ________ (fill in the blank with one of my sibling's names) sister?????" Usually the implication was that I had high standards to live up to, but on very rare occasions I got the distinct impression that I had a negative hurdle to overcome. I won't say which names had which impressions. But the fact remained that I was walking in three shadows, and I never forgot that whatever one of them had done--good or bad--it was something the teachers would judge me by. I've talked to our neighbor about her two daughters and there is a similar trend between the two of them...the oldest one is an honor student and excels at everything, and the younger one is often put in the position of having to live up to that standard.
For the record, kindergarten isn't what it was when most of my faithful readers were enrolled....it is more like what I studied in second grade. The Reenactor and I are always astonished at what M is learning. We're expecting calculus homework any day now.
2 comments:
"following in his grandfather's footsteps!"
"wuh?"
"footsteps! footsteps!"
i've been up since 4:30 this morning so i could be enlightened at a 5 am meeting on the mission statement of whole foods, my soon-to-be employer. and when i get tired only one thing happens: i start quoting young frankenstein like crazy.
but seriously- i, too, am a victim of the "are you jenny's sister" and "oo, are you related to ed?" jeez. you'd think they were local celebrities. but here's one for auntie k: niece version 2.0 got a lot of "are you related to KF??" when she went to dreary, especially on the third floor of burnham hall.
Being the oldest, I didn't have a "shadow", but having Mom for a teacher was rather like being a preacher's kid--perfection expected! Plus never being sure, when in 4th grade & having her BE my teacher, knowing who was really a friend and who was trying to get Brownie points from her through me...
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