True Terror Is To Wake Up One Morning And Discover Your High School Class Is Running The Country (Kurt Vonnegut)
"Hello, Alexandra. My name is Miss Samantha."
I held my breath as Lexi shook hands with the teacher. The hope-we-get-into-Bar-Harbor-Preschool teacher. (When did it start that you have to apply to preschool? And an intake interview? No wonder the parents shooting for Yale in 16 years were having nervous breakdowns.)
Lexi shook hands gravely. "I am very pweased to meet you." (Sometimes she has trouble with her l's. Hard for a kid named Lexi Caitlin Mallard.)
"And I'm very pleased to meet you. Do you prefer Alexandra? Alex?"
"Lexi, if you don't mind." (She worked hard to get that L out. Gold star.)
Miss Samantha looked amused. "Such grownup manners! Would you like to play with the other children while I talk to your parents?"
Lexi smiled and skipped off to the center of the room where four other kids were playing. Around the room there were four other sets of parental units talking with four other teachers and administrators. We were being tested as much as the kids were.
We answered all manner of questions about Lexi, the family, the extended family, our routines—this was new to us, so we went with polite, honest, relaxed and—hard for both of us—not too chatty.
My ears were accustomed to the collection of kids at the store, so I heard the beginning of a minor squabble before Ducky did. Two boys—and Lexi quickly chiming in.
"Why don't you share? Pway with it together?"
"I want it!"
"It's mine!"
"It's not yours, it's the schoow's," Lexi pointed out (quite reasonably).
"Mine!" The little boy in—god help him, a three piece suit—screamed and yanked at the truck another little boy was holding in a death grip.
"Why don't you take turns?" Lexi was still trying to be peacemaker.
"No!" they both shrieked.
Two sets of parents were trying to get up from the itty-bitty chairs. One mom was dressed in a short pencil skirt and stiletto heels—she was probably the mom of the Mini Mogul, and she was having a very hard time getting up from the chair. Mom #2 was more sensibly dressed in slacks and a sweater, but she was hesitating. Would running in to referee be seen as a caring parent—or helicopter mom? (Both dads were plainly thinking, 'ah, let 'em hash it out themselves'—but were still unsure if this, too, was appropriate.)
Problem solved. The kid in the blue and green checked shirt pulled the truck from Mini Mogul—and clonked him over the head with it. His scream hit about 500db, the two girls happily sharing Play-doh at the other table froze, and Mogul's mom still couldn't get off the chair.
Lexi peered at the head of the howling boy and made a "tsk" noise. "Don't be a baby. It's just a superfishow scawp wound."
The worst part is—she hasn't gone with Ducky for "take your kid to work" day. Yet.