Pre-school application, and I learn about rejection

T is away and that means the morning routine, which is dreaded second only to the evening routine, is all mine. It goes surprisingly well today even as I continue to chastise C to get himself ready ever faster, even when I’m at least 50% of the reason for our perpetual delay.

Then I take Z to his pre-school “playdate,” kind of an absurd tradition in the application process (really?) of the pre-school that C attended and that we absolutely adored. Z joins a group of 6 or so other kids, and the pre-school administrator observes them so? what? she can see they are “normal” and not future psycho-killers. In fact I’m beyond even analyzing the point of this; I just focus on my newfound realization that Z is so tiny, and shy, and quiet, and he couldn’t be more of a contrast to the other kids in the room. I have read in a thousand million parenting sites and books that every kid is different and I repeat to myself that EVERY KID IS DIFFERENT but I can’t help wondering if Z is going to hold his own with the other kids in preschool, in elementary school, at college and for the rest of his life; whether he is a late bloomer; what it may say about his lot in life that another kid his age knows the words EXCAVATOR and BACKHOE and to Z everything is either just a truck or a bulldozer.

Back at home we deal with Z’s runny nose, my emergent cold, a fun conversation for the story that I may or may not be able to pitch, and round it out with a playdate for C that is mostly trains and cars but ends in a karate kick, a punch, tears, pasta and homemade turkey meatballs and four pillow fights.

And then I inaugurate the weekend by finding out that our book has been rejected by another three publishers. I am almost crying when I tell T on the phone, but he’s so far away and the connection is so crackly I realize I’m just going to have to tough this one out myself.