Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Another entry in the 'Weird Boy' column.

For the last two years, I've been driving Jadyn to drop PB off at daycare or kindergarten every morning before work. This has been a generally tedious, sometimes unpleasant task. When the boy is sleepy, his feet disappear. He can't walk. He can't stand. You must carry him. Please refer to my earlier post regarding our adventure with a shopping cart for an approximation of his weight. But generally after we get him in the car and buckled up, he'll finally wake up. That's when he's 'hungwy'...nevermind the breakfast that he declined before we left the apartment. Or he might be chatty, which has generally consisted of repetitions of the word 'chicken' or whatever the new strange noise of the week is.

But the real fun doesn't start until we get to school. The way it works is that a line of cars forms up to the front door of the school. When it's your turn, you pull forward, and some kind staff member will come out and relieve you of your bundle of joy. I've seen other people do this...it seems a fairly straightforward proposition. Pull up. Open door. Extract child. Drive away.

With PB...not so much. He refuses to be hurried. We pull up. The staff member opens the door, greets us, greets PB, and tries to coax him out of the car.

He stretches languidly.

Twice.

He puts on his jacket (fastening every zipper) for the three foot walk to the door.

He remembers something about Godzilla that he simply must tell his mother.

He stretches again.

Languidly.

By the time he's been dragged from the vehicle, the people in line behind us are honking and throwing rotten vegetables at us. And that's on a good day. I've seen him actually clutch the seat belt with both hands and refuse to let go until his little fingers have been pried off one at a time.

But isn't it funny how love will change everything? PB has developed a crush on Miss Andrea, the staff member who usually gets him out of the car in the morning. She's sort of cute in a Pillsbury DoughGirlish sort of way, but he adores her. We first noticed it one day when she got him out of the car (with no delays on his part) and he said to her "your hair STILL looks pretty!" The next day, it was her shirt. Then her pretty pink flip-flops. Yesterday, she got a double: "I like your purple shirt and your necklace!".

This is apparently becoming a part of the day that he looks forward to. I watched him this morning as he was watching her coming out the door for him. He was scanning her up and down, no doubt looking for her next compliment-worthy attribute. He had to fall back on 'shirt' again today, but he didn't neglect to mention something.

As for Miss Andrea, she seems pleased and of course who wouldn't be happy about getting all those compliments from a handsome young gentlemen, but I think ultimately their relationship is probably doomed to be mostly a teacher/student kind of thing. That's what's great about being six though...he won't even mind. And I don't mind either. It's made the morning drop-off routine something for me to look foward to also.