This evening, I got around to responding to an email from a very dear friend. I put off writing her about the move since I knew that she and I both suffered from a touch of the blues, and I hated to engulf her in a long weepy email regaling her of my malaise. Also, I am really back at writing people back.
The long email turned into a blog post, so I am reproducing bits of it here.
Yes, I am an awful person for not getting in touch sooner. It has not been a fun or easy couple of months.
After we got here, we spent about a week in corporate housing, which was kind of like being on vacation in a hotel, except the pool is full of child actors that are making Disney pilots and giving each other advice about full-body-waxing.
Evan rented a house before we got out here and it's great -- it's small but well kept up, and we are two blocks away from a fantastic elementary school. We had a week to unpack and get our lives into order (well, Evan had to work, so basically I huddled in the corner like a lump everyday while my kids watched lots and lots of TV, and then Evan came home, and we unpacked. Then the boys started school (we didn't know if there was room for Oscar at the school until two days before school began, not stressful at all!) 8/15.
Oscar immediately became best friends with a really sweet kid. Connor had started school here in Burbank in the middle of the school year last year (his older sister was having issues at their crappy neighborhood school -- they live in Reseda, about fifteen miles away -- and since his mom works here in Burbank, she was able to transfer both kids into the far superior Burbank schools). Connor never really clicked with any of the kids in his new class, so when Oscar started, he was all like "New kid! He can be my BEST FRIEND!" How awesome is that? We are so lucky that they found each other. Oscar has other casual friends in class and we are starting to make more in Scouts (which pulls from multiple schools) but it is such a relief that he has playdates and sleepovers with his bestie and that he is a really nice kid.
Arlo is in kindergarten from 8:15-11:38 and he is doing great. I'm actually relieved that it's not full day. He has 30 kids in his class (!!!) but they have an interesting system here. After the first few weeks the kids are broken into Early Birds and Late Birds. The Early ones are the ones who need a little more help (ie: can't identify all of the sounds the letters make at the beginning of K) and they attend school from 8:15-11:38. The late birds are a little more advanced (and are, as you probably guessed, mostly girls) and they attend from 9:15-12:38. So the full 30 of them are only together for two of the three hours and I don't know what they do, but the teachers are really well trained in handling gigantic classrooms. Oscar's class is 31 kids! They do the early/late bird thing right up to 2nd grade. So far so good.
Oscar's homework has gone from 20 minutes done in the kitchen with me while I'm making dinner to 90 minutes of me sitting at the table with him. I don't know if it's a CA thing or a 3rd grade thing; maybe you guys can fill me in. Two sides of a really difficult math worksheet, spelling (same old same old) and reading homework as well. Everything but everything is multiple choice. 90% of everything is purely test prep. They are very very big on test prep over here, and I am struggling to try and engage Oscar creatively. That said he got the award for highest math scores in August, and he's in Chess Club at one of the local rec departments which he loves. (He's the only non-Indian in the class.) The K curriculum seems to be pretty similar. I know understand what Colleen meant when she said she preferred half-day K. Arlo comes home, eats lunch with Lucy and I, I badger him into doing his homework (he has a packet sent home on Monday that we return on Friday, so it's a bit more flexible) and then he decompresses with the iPad for an hour.
Here's the thing: all the parents at our school are at least ten years younger than we are. They are all generally friendly but they obviously have their friends already. They've been going to this school and they don't have a lot of energy for outsiders, and frankly, I don't have the energy to try and ingratiate myself. I'm too busy being homesick and sulky. There aren't many people out here with more than two kids. Our neighborhood is a mix of older blue-collar types and youngish media types, and this is their starter home. (Keep in mind that a starter home out here is 2 or 3 br, 1 bath, and anywhere from 400 to 600k, at least in our neighborhood.) It's a far cry from M/SO where most of us started having kids in our early to late 30s. I felt like I was within 5 years of the other parents in Oscar's K class, and I am easily 10+ years older (at 41) than the bulk of Arlo's K class. I plan on getting involved in the PTA and all that but o, my friends, I. Am. Tired.
Things got a bit better when Lucy started preschool two weeks ago. She's going to a great play-based school a town away, in a 3s program, 9-12 Thursday and Friday, but I don't have any work right now, so I can't really justify more. Every day I pick her up after 3 hours and she is elated, exhausted and filthy. As far as I'm concerned, that's the measure of a great school. But personally, it meant that I was introduced to a bunch of people where this was their first school experience. There was copious amounts of sobbing on the first day, and Evan and I led Lucy to the door and said, "See that girl crying? Why don't you take her by the hand and tell her how great school is and lead her into the classroom?" She is the only kid in the classroom that has been in school before and as the youngest of our brood, it's great for her to be in a position of experience. I've also been able to reach out to some of the parents and put out feelers of friendship, and since this is a new start for them, they are open for it.
So, anyhoo, in between all of that, as soon as the kids went to bed, I started crying. I've probably cried more this past few weeks than I have during any other time of my life. We moved out here for my husband's job, and as grateful as I am that Warner Bros. thinks so highly of him that they would spend tens of thousands to move us out here, I feel like I just got canned from my job. My job for the past six years has been to develop a community for our family and our kids, to be involved with our kids' schools, and to make "our village." To walk down the street in our town and see a bunch of friends; to know the local shopkeepers, to be a part of a community.
And all of that, my life's work for the past six years, just went poof. Gone. Nada. And people (not my husband, bless him) are basically telling me to get over it, and I have a really hard time getting over it, because the relationships that I've made in the past six years are probably the best work I've ever done, along with making my family. But it's so wrapped up together: making my family, making my community. I've been in mourning for the past few weeks.
Basically this turned into a blog post instead of a chatty update email. I miss all of you guys and your kids every day -- how much did it kill me to not put your names down as emergency contacts? I had NO emergency contacts! I will badger Oscar into writing some postcards. We love getting mail.
I miss you ladies, and I thank you very much for the past coupla years.
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