Ruby keeps asking for help in finding a dog to borrow so that she can style its fur. Something not too big, not too small, with longish curly fur. Not too barky, not at all squirmy, definitely not one that jumps up on people or has ever been known to bite, and I suppose it would be a plus if it likes bows. Of course, we don’t know any dogs like this, but Ruby seems so sure that I can conjure one up, and I just hate this feeling that I'm disappointing her.
Ruby had her first day of the first round of state-mandated testing today. I, and the other parents, tried hard to play it cool and be supportive without adding pressure...which I have concluded is impossible to do. Any comment, question, allusion about the test just gives the impression it’s important or difficult or that we have concerns about their ability to take it. In any case, Ruby and her friends were plenty nervous, to hear it from the other parents. Ruby was up early enough to watch some Curious George before school for the first time ever. Another kid wet the bed for the first time in six years, and two of her pals were bickering in the carpool. For what it’s worth, Ruby reports that today’s test, math, went okay, and she’s thinking the reading portion tomorrow will go even better.
Ruby has learned to play chess, or least a few rules of chess, and so I am trying to brush up on the rules. It’s more complicated than I remembered. Did you know I have also forgotten how to play checkers? I suppose it doesn’t really matter, because I’m playing by the Rules According to Ruby, and she has ways of either winning or quitting while she’s “ahead.”
Already next week Ruby and Carl will find out who their teachers for the next three years are likely to be. I delayed and dithered about going to visit classrooms and weighing in on who I thought the best ones would be, not wanting to interfere or make a wrong choice. So I am instead relying on fate, destiny, and the judgment of their current teachers to make good decisions for them. Please, don’t let it be Slytherin!
By way of updates, I am now a PTO president, no snickering, and thank-you-very-much. To my shock, my general interest in the job, and my level of judgment and people managing skills did not magically multiply in the wake of the election, and so I am still floundering about. This weekend there is an all school playdate, then the PTO board potluck. Then we order and sell new t-shirts and the yearbook, and then we have a big teacher appreciation lunch, and all the while there are regular board meetings, newsletters, a Facebook page, and a website and banking arrangements and bookkeeping to figure out. Should we have a pool party in a few weeks, or not? Do we order 288 t-shirts, or 294 t-shirts, and which colors and sizes? Will we ever find someone to chair the big fundraiser next year?
The kids had Good Friday off, and so naturally we went bowling. I won, but the kids did better than usual and no one fell and split his chin open this time. We also did some gardening and hung out with friends. The Easter brunch and egg hunt I wasn’t really in the mood to host turned out to be fun in the end! We used the empty lot across the street for the hunt, the kids played Legos and soccer and who knows what all, and there was way too much food, just the way I like it.
Looking forward, I am finally getting my hair fixed tomorrow, then I’m getting Rod’s car serviced, then Friday morning I’m getting up to watch that royal wedding! Let me be clear: I have absolutely no interest in, and absolute cynicism about the happy couple. But I love a good pageant, a protocol spectacle. The outfits! The seating charts! The order of events! The crazy traditions! It’s sick, really, but see what twelve years of protocol work will do to you? And too, I remember sitting on the floor of my parents’ bedroom in the dark, early one morning in 1981, watching that other royal wedding, so there's a little nostalgia at work. Now I just have to find a friend with cable I can get to invite me over at 4 a.m. Rod thinks I am nuts, but he knows enough to not say so.