I’m waiting for the Kindergarten grind to catch up to my son.

His preschool was only three hours in the afternoon. Kindergarten runs all day. Like his old man, he’s more inclined toward being a night owl than a morning person. We’ll see where that gets him after a few months of having to get up early every day.

We worked on adjusting his sleep schedule in the buildup to school, but there’s nothing like the real thing to make it hit home. So far, after a week of school, he still must be forced to go to bed at a reasonable hour. He gets up in the morning without too much fuss, though it’s clear he’s not happy about it. Welcome to my world, kid.

There have been no reports of him nodding off in school, which makes him a better man than I was at that age. When I was in Kindergarten, I came home at noon. That, and the modern curriculum, makes his current situation more comparable to my first grade experience.

In first grade, my day went like this: get up at 4 a.m. for a quick bowl of Cream of Wheat before going to milk cows; get to school 15-30 minutes late, smelling as little like the barn as possible; chocolate milk and a cookie at 10; fit some learning in before noon; peanut butter sandwich and random Hostess product for lunch; sleep at desk until awakened for bus ride home.

Where was this school when I needed it? I could have been first in my class.

I’m not sure what my class did in the afternoons as I was rarely with them in consciousness. I don’t remember falling behind, so maybe it was just a recap of the morning’s work. For all I know, it was free play all afternoon, or maybe the teacher led them in games of Let’s Shoot Spit Wads at the Sleepy Farm Kid. I was blissfully ignorant of the goings on around me, which makes me pine for the days when I could put my head down and fall asleep at my desk. The work day would go so much smoother if I could still sleep in that position.

“Arrgh! How do they expect me to sleep at such an uncomfortable desk?” (Image: Bayard Taylor)

By the second grade, I was staying awake all day. I’m not sure how that happened. It seems impossible that I could go to bed even earlier than I did in first grade. Maybe I matured, or maybe the second grade teacher made a habit of kicking my chair in the afternoons. It could be that the specter of cursive writing made it too hard to relax.

With all the stuff they throw at little kids in school these days, I doubt it’s a good idea to take the afternoons off anymore. If Kindergarten does start to wear my son down, we still have room to adjust his bed time. That should help him get through the day, but I don’t think he’ll like the idea at night. Hopefully, he’ll be too tired to raise a stink.

My son’s new school is about a mile away from our house. His new school is the one in which he will attend Kindergarten. He calls it his new school to differentiate it from his preschool, which was his old school.

He likes to visit his new school. There is a big playground alongside and I guess he wants to familiarize himself with all the equipment, to give himself a jump on his classmates in September. It’s important to know which is the best slide in those pivotal moments when the other children are making a confused rush toward the playground. Otherwise, you could have to wait your turn or something.

A school is only as good as its playground.

Yesterday, I was home with the boys. As a special treat, I loaded them both into their wagon and started pulling them over the long trail toward the new school. It wasn’t very hot outside, if you weren’t pulling two kids in a wagon. The unencumbered pedestrians we saw looked rather comfortable. But comfortable is a relative term for a beast of burden.

Halfway there, I realized that I hadn’t brought the little guy’s diaper bag. We had already climbed one of the two big hills along the way and I was damned if I were going to backtrack for a diaper. Diapers are subject to arcane rules of chance, mandating that if you go out of your way to have one with you, you will certainly not need it.

I discussed it with Toddler Boy and we agreed to roll the dice and keep going. Mr. Kindergartener concurred, though his vote was merely ceremonial.

At the school playground, the boys exited the wagon. I had earned a moment of relaxation, but what a parent earns and what he collects are different quantities. A four-year-old can run surprisingly fast when aimed at a slide-sprouting sculpture of yellow metal.

Practicing racing the other children to the best slide.

A one-year-old can be stopped in his tracks by an interesting array of wood chips, a used straw, an unfortunate bug, or really any number of common things seen under the new light of the playground.

A piece of mulch unlike any other.

It is no time for relaxing when one must herd the cheetah and the sloth into the same swath of savannah.

Our play time was limited. Building clouds made a storm appear imminent, and a toddler always makes a storm imminent when he lacks fresh diapers.

As I built up a nice froth pulling the boys home, my son said, “Daddy, I’m not sure I want to go to Kindergarten.”

This was unusual. He’s been excited about it so far. “Why not?” I asked.

“I don’t know if I want to follow all their rules.”

This is a boy after my own heart. Many times I have contemplated calling my supervisor: “I won’t be in today because I don’t think I want to follow your rules. You’ll see me when I’ve developed a better attitude.”

I couldn’t argue against his point, so we went home.

The dismal house of rules just beyond the playground.

My wife got home soon after. “Guess what we did?” my son asked her. “We walked to my new school.”

We did?

I let it go. Mom was home now, so I could grab a few minutes to myself to relax. I did what I normally do with these precious moments. I went outside and mowed the lawn.