100th Day Celebration

Today marked the 100th day of school and I spent the day with 'Shroom and his class. Every kinder kid was required to bring one adult to school for the entire school day's 100th Day Celebration. I don't know if this 100th Day thing is a Californian thing or I've just been out of it since I've graduated from my public school days.


Regardless, it was an interesting day for me. I came home and told Air Boss I had a bad morning. Although the day wasn't about me, I felt torn between feeling sad for 'Shroom and angry at him. The parents accompanied the kids throughout five different stations in the classroom. From drawing pictures of themselves at age 100 to making Fruit Loop necklaces (with 100 Fruit Loops, of course!), I had to prod 'Shroom to get his work done. It was like pulling teeth. He would be last in finishing up his work and the fact that kids around him were zipping through their work made no difference to him. He was even last to finish up his pretzel stick and two doughnut holes (which conveniently make the number 100). And I had thought eating was something he could do quickly!


The Lima Beans
The first sad moment in the day came when the kids had to find 100 lima beans in the kindergarten playground. After each child was finished with his/her snack, s/he would get a plastic cup to start looking for the lima beans. The rule was that only 100 beans could be picked up otherwise there wouldn't be enough beans left for all the kids to collect 100. 'Shroom finished his snack so late that there were hardly any beans left. We had a hard time finding the first 20. We managed to make it up to 60 only because other kids had collected more than 100 and had to "throw" their beans back on the grass. 'Shroom got excited when he found the discarded beans. He didn't know that they were extras that were tossed by other kids. To me, it felt like we were picking up other people's discarded trash. It didn't help that 'Shroom spilled his cup of lima beans on a pile of discarded beans - we don't even know if we ever made it to 100. As usual, 'Shroom ran out of time.


The $100 Bills
The last event of the day was another sad moment for me as a mother of a slow child. A masked man (dressed as a hero figure) came to the playground and threw out fake $100 bills. Two kinder class (about 40 kids in all) ran outside screaming in excitement and picked up as many bills as they could find. The $100 bills were obviously photocopied (on green paper) and enlarged probably at least at 400% - they were not hard to find as proven by the many kids who had ARMFULS of bills. Other kids had thick wads of the reproduced play money. Guess how many 'Shroom collected?


NONE. As in not a single one. Zilch. Zippo.


I was watching with some other parents from the edge of the playground and my heart sank as I watched my first-born look around helplessly on the ground for money that had long been snatched up. In the brief moment that I had lost sight of him, someone (either another student or a compassionate parent) had handed him a bill. He came running to me proudly displaying the one bill that he hadn't even found.


Why couldn't 'Shroom simply be a normal five year old? How hard is it to gobble up a pretzel stick and two doughnut holes? How come when he counts, he always get stuck on the number 13 and then can't figure out what comes next? Why is it that he draws monochromatic stick figures (bug-eyed aliens is more like it) when all the other children are drawing multi-colored complex scenes? Why is it that he can't walk and count his steps at the same time? And why does it take him two to three times as long to complete anything? I know that we're not supposed to compare our kids to other children but believe me, if any of you have walked in my shoes, it's pretty darn hard to ignore the fact that your child is LAST in EVERYTHING.


This 100th Day Celebration - I don't know what to make of it. It didn't seem like such a great celebration to have to watch my child be last the whole day. I just don't know how to help him anymore.