….deleting all the papers from my hard drive that #1 son has sent me for proofreading over the past couple of years. Gone! Very nice. Although now, the years-long Chris-in-college anxiety is being replaced by the possibility of Chris-kicking-so-much-editing-booty-in-Atlanta-after-just-three-weeks-that-he’s-thinking-LA-already super-sized anxiety.

….finding the colored glass/twisty wire earrings I bought from a street crafter/vendor in Campo di Fiore for 5 Euros, that I thought I’d lost somewhere in St. Louis, a possibility that made me sad, because I really like them, and I really like what they remind me of – wandering in Campo with Katie and with the baby on my back, peering into shops, eating gelato, and stepping aside for a Hare Krishna parade. (The one time I didn’t have my camera with me. Figures.How I would love to have that photo.) But somehow, they turned up in my car today, and I have no idea how they got there. I won’t ask.

…taking Joseph for his Kindergaten assessment – everyone else started school this week, but the Kindergartners get an extra week of vacation.

I was a little worried because I didn’t know how he’d deal with the transition to a new school – our parish school which doesn’t have a Pre-K, which is why he attended another Catholic school which does have a  preschool. He had a bit of a hard time adapting last year, being a bit shy, so I wondered.

Well, so far so good. He walked right in, quite interested in the enormous room full of wonderful play stations, books and a fishtank. I was sent out into the hall to fill out some forms and write his name on every single marker we’d brought (not just the packages – the markers themselves!), and look through the textbooks.

When I came back in, the teacher, a tall grey-haired woman who seemed to be just the right mix of friendliness and authority, had me sit down, and they showed me the assessment – identifying numbers that were written out of order, a bit of a logic puzzle, finishing a half-drawn pictures and so on. She also had a story that they’d read together and he’d had to synopsize for her. He did fine on it all, and I’ll say I was intrigued by the story.

It was an older book, a very early reader,  taped together, about a cat named Max who was in hot pursuit of a rat. He finally succeeded in getting the rat trapped under a pan and the book ends with the cat licking his chops, ready for his lunch.

For some reason, I had to wonder if a book like that would make it past the educational establishment today. Wouldn’t it be too violent? In this age of cartoons full of animals that somehow never seem to eat or even hunt each other, would it pass muster? I’m actually doubting it – or am I being too reactive?

It reminded me, in a way, of my 8th grade English teacher at Bearden Junior High School in Knoxville. In this public school, our teacher – Mrs. Carter (wow – I just remembered that. I don’t think I remember any other my 8th grade teachers’ names), used an old Catholic grammar book to give us sentences for diagramming. She was forthright about it too. I think she may have even announced that she wasn’t Catholic, but this had been the best grammar series ever produced, and she was going to use it, by heavens.

(And by the way, speaking of old teaching things  – you can tell this is a stream-of-consciousness night – my mother taught me to read using a comic-type series that was printed, I believe, in the Chicago Sun-Times. (we were living in DeKalb at the time) I actually still remember parts of it – I remember vowels being taught by a panel that said in part "I – O- U – a kiss!" and I vaguely recall how the sound of "H" was expressed. Anyone else remember this? Was it ever put in book form?)

So back to Joseph…he did fine and was totally entranced with the room and comfortable with the teacher. We’ll see how he does when Monday comes and he has to share it with 16 other little children, though. Aye, there’s the rub. It always seems to be. Although he is, I’m glad to say, well past the stage in which he would immediately get off any piece of playground equipment if another child even laid a hand on it.

And in a typical Joseph moment…the teacher was showing him the restrooms (which are in the room, in the tradition of Kindergarten rooms everywhere) – one for girls and one for boys. She made a point of telling him that they were both the same, and if someone was in the boys and he really had to go, he should just go in the girls’ if it was empty. That would be perfectly okay.

He looked at her with his dimply, squinty-eyed gaze that we can only call "impish" (well, you could probably call it "sly" as well) and asked, "What if there’s someone in both of them?"

Always looking for the "gotcha" , my children. Always.

Oh, and here’s a children’s book o’ the week for you:

Tree Ring Circus by Adam Rex. Totally charming, borderline nonsensical, kind of crazy, and good fun. A seed grows into a tree and somehow a whole circus ends up in said tree. No lessons and no morals. Except perhaps…watch out for the elephant. Joseph was absorbed – you know it’s a winner when you finish reading it to him and, when it’s time to say good-night, he asks for it back for some closer study.

And although this one does have a lesson, I found myself liking it despite myself:

Yes, it’s a story of "tolerance" as the rather refined cow family resists their son’s frienship with the new pig in the neighborhood. But the witty, arch style improbably rescues it from being too earnest, and who could really resist, "They all liked the same music and the same books. And they were all vegetarians." A thumbs up with Joseph, who enjoyed the jumping-in-the-mud parts.