Kindergarten Tornado

My eldest son wanted to make pancakes.

 Later that morning was yet another elementary school tour for him, and his emotions tend to come from his stomach as opposed to his heart. Your child has but a brief moment to show brilliance at these places, that somehow during the time between when he and his fellow candidates march in a Choo Choo Train line to meet with a team of experts and afterwards when he rushes back to you that his letters will be straighter, ears will hear better, and smile will stretch wider than the normal boy he usually is. It is the moment when he goes behind the curtain to see the wizard who checks on his brains, heart, and courage while you wait with a bunch of other parents who are also pretending not to be stressed while wishing that they were home.

 Getting into kindergarten is a long, yellow brick road. There was no way he was going to do it on an empty stomach.

He almost climbed completely into the fridge to get the milk and butter, and had to get a chair to reach the shelf that had the bisquick. The one parenting concession he agreed to was that my wife was in charge of the stove, but we were a little distressed about how easily he turned it on. He went slowly with the pouring, the mixing, and the flipping.

 We rushed the rest of the morning. When we put him in a booster seat for the drive he complained about having food all over his pants. A quick change later, it was clear that he was more thoughtful than I was who can barely cook and badly dresses.

So many years ago I toured that same school and had left it crying. A boy had slammed my fingers, and that was it. I didn’t get into the place; nine years gone with a set of tears. Life is a series of auditions, but only occasionally call backs.

 My son was the caboose of the interview train and one of the first to rush back. We went to a park, and he never said a word about what happened behind the curtain.

The next few weeks we will wait in a fog of uncertainty. There are the moments when my kid can be truly insightful and the others when he can be painful (especially to his younger brother). Which version of my son was there I don’t know. What is certain is that he is learning how to the handle the world. We have no idea where he will wind up, but he will be cracking eggs and sweetening his life with just a touch of syrup.