Kindergarten here we come

Today they had an info session for parents at Ethan's soon-to-be kindergarten school. Parents were in one room, kids in a kindergarten classroom across the hall. After what Mark considers way too much anguished thought on my part, I decided not to bring Ethan to the event which featured (whoo-hoo) a ride on the yellow school bus. My intuition said it would only be confusing for him, and potentially make him nervous. Ethan has been confirming every two days or so that "Ethan never, never, never, never go Ballalar" (his word for the orphanage). This morning he added a question about whether Mama and Papa were happy Ethan lived in the house. "Yes! Very happy!" Can you imagine having to worry about this kind of thing when you're four years old?

Anyway, it's pretty funny to be in a room full of anxious parents, all worrying about the fate of their future kindergarteners -- including me. We had a long, long talk from the school psychologist about the problems that second and third grade girls have socializing (relevance?), and about how kids get blue rhinos, pink fish etc. pinned to their shirts the first day so they can find their classroom. Very, very important for us to know this. (Actually, the session was pretty helpful, I'm just poking fun at how serious all this stuff gets sometimes.)