First Graders Know Everything

Yesterday Jacob asked Chris if he had liked school as much as he does when Chris was in the first grade. Chris assured him that he had. Then Jacob said, "I knew that Daddy, because you still go to school all the time." Jacob is so perceptive.  And in his smart aleck defense, Chris has been in school for most of Jacob's short life, first with law school and now with the Foreign Service.


Of course, Chris's job now is to learn Spanish before we head off to Tijuana, but in Jacob's mind, Chris is most likely playing Spanish Bingo, singing Spanish songs, counting to a googolplex in Spanish and finger-painting his Spanish assignments, all while wearing a sombrero and eating tacos. Oh, and sometimes he has to read a book in Spanish, but it's probably about Star Wars. (This week, Darth Vader, Yoda and Anakin Skywalker have replaced Mario and Luigi in the conversational topics hierarchy.)  Who knows?  Maybe Jacob's right, and this is what Chris is doing all day.  It's all classified.  


Basically, to Jacob, learning Spanish has to be a lot like kindergarten or preschool, because that's his only frame of reference. And for that matter, first grade has to be that way too. Except maybe the books will be a little harder, but it will still be lots of fun.

First grade is in for a surprise

This morning before I could wake him up, Jacob was bouncing into the living room, fully dressed in a very respectable collared, button down shirt and khaki shorts. His shirt perfectly matched the bruised greenish color of his nose, which the doctor could neither confirm nor deny the brokenness of on this past Friday. (He tripped on a pillow in the floor and landed on the coffee table nose first on Thursday night.  It's a good thing we didn't "just let him die" as he requested when it happened though, since he is recovering quite nicely and now realizes there is life after nose trauma.) Despite the seeming respectability of his Jacob's attire, there was no doubt in my mind that his teacher wouldn't be fooled into a false impression of him since he was still sporting a mo-hawk and a busted nose. He was going to school to learn, but he planned on having a good time while he was there.


So this morning after putting an excited Jacob on the bus to first grade and driving a more subdued yet equally enthused Benjy to preschool, Andrew and I settled in for a quiet morning. He spent most of it napping (all this running around is just wearing him out), and the rest, trying to feed himself.

Call him Mr. Independent