Meeting

Last week I went to Harper’s preschool conference. Not a huge deal in and of itself, but I realized that this would be the last conference in the school she is currently going to.  Next year is Kindergarten.  I’m particularly sensitive to this because it’s the end of an era for me, too.  I don’t know what I’ll do next year, but with both girls in school full time, I’d like to do  something. I go back and forth: I’d like to teach, I’d like to teach part time and write part time. I’d like to not look for jobs at all and just write for a year and see what happens. (This last one I’d never have the self-discipline for.) I’d like to work at Paper Source in Georgetown and take my lunch breaks walking around the rooftop of the Kennedy Center so I can see the Cathedral, and Virginia, the Potomac and the Jefferson Monument.

I learned at Harper’s conference that she has lots of ideas of what she’d like to be, too. She wants to be an artist, a butterfly catcher, a person who designs parks. I also learned that she can cut, and write her name, and sing and play with others just fine.

The teacher told me that she won’t raise her hand during circle time, but if she is called on, she has lots to say and has no problem saying it.

Yes, I told her teacher, I know all about that.

To celebrate a job well done, Harper and I took a trip to Bethesda to the place I have taken up residency when I do my homework, Le Pain Quotidien. I love this place because there’s coffee and delicious food and thick, distressed wood tables with plenty of space for me to spread my paper and pens out. Harper loves this place because there is this:

I told Harper that she had a great conference and we are so proud of her as she slurped her hot chocolate, and we discussed the sort of park she would like to design someday.

“I don’t know if that’s what I’m going to do for sure,” she told me.

“Oh, yeah? How come?”

“Because what I want to do is color all the equipment. And what if someone wants the slides orange and I want them purple? I don’t want to get into a fight.”

“Well,” I began, “what if you and this other person made a pattern? You know, you could paint the slide purple, and this other person could put orange polka dots on it. I think that’d be a really cool looking slide.”

“Or stripes? The other person could paint orange stripes on the slide.”

“Or stripes,” I said sipping my coffee.

We’ll figure out the next part just fine, she and I.