Twas the night before Kindergarten, and all through the house, everyone was so nervous and excited (or nervicited as Pinky Pie would say) they couldn’t sleep.
Hair was washed and braided so it would be easy to brush in the morning.
Toes tickled, forehead kissed, little girl all tucked in…
but she just couldn’t sleep. “I’m starting to think morning isn’t ever going to come,” she said after getting up the fourth time to see if it was time to get ready for school yet.
I was in a slightly different state of mind. My plans to print out the cutest little sign for her first day of Kindergarten photo were foiled when my printer quit on me. So I spent those hours between tucking her in and tucking her in again using her back-to-school markers to make a sign for her by hand.
Our little family of three walked to school together that first morning. Another family joined us with their new kindergartener. With each new turn and cross street more people joined our walking caravan to the school. As we approached the last corner before the school, we saw families flooding together from all directions, and we could hear the chatter of what must be thousands of voices. I was not prepared for the roar of sound when we walked on to the blacktop and over to the designated line-up spot for her class. So many children. So many parents. Especially for the kindergarteners, in many cases there were two parents for each child.
The bell rang.
The kids lined up, and followed their teachers into the classroom.
The parents stood there and stared at the building. Especially the kindergarten parents. How long was it ok to stand here and stare at the building like a crazy person before it gets creepy?
The principal came out and invited parents in to the cafeteria for coffee and a hard-sell on volunteering, before we all wondered off in different directions, a little overwhelmed at this new feature of our lives.
At the end of the first day of school, she was predictably exhausted
The end of the second day was as well.
But every morning, she bounces back, ready to take on another day of school.
This is part of our routine now: the walk to school, wondering which families our timing will sync up with for the next 4 blocks, parents starting to recognize each other – and each other’s kids, kids recognizing each other and excitedly getting caught up on everything that happened since 3:40 yesterday, friendships forming – for the adults and the kids.
The first thing that struck me at WordCamp Seattle was the inclusive sense of community. People from all walks of life, hobby bloggers and coders, grandmas, hairdressers, and hackers, came together to discuss WordPress, how to use it, and how to improve it. People were so friendly, no snobbery, no cliques, no standoffishness…
I have attended small scale blog conferences before, but this was the first time to attend an event of this kind for me.
What is WordCamp?
WordCamps are non-profit conferences that are organized and run entirely by volunteers. No need to break the bank on wardrobe or ticket prices. This is definitely a come as you are event – be yourself, no one is there to see your shoes – and the amazingly low ticket price of $20 is offset by the many sponsors who make these conferences possible. I spent some time speaking to reps from the sponsors, and these people really get the community focus of WordCamp, and WordPress as a whole.
Nearly 700 people converged on the HUB at the University of Washington for WordCamp Seattle this year. It was huge, and so well run. There were panels for rank beginners and seasoned developers, and everyone in between.
So many useful sessions
The schedule was packed, so many talks from which to choose! Here are the sessions I attended (slides used by the presenters linked below):
So many great talks, and of course, there were four different talks going through most of the sessions. But the slide shows and video of the events has been made public, so you can see what you missed at a later date. A note about the videos, there is one long video for each of the three rooms that covers all of the talks that took place in the room, so get yourself a really big cup of coffee before sitting down to watch.
This conference was just so rich with useful information and resources that two weeks later I am still processing everything in my head.
But that was just day one. Day two upped the community aspect in a completely different way…
Contributors Day
I wasn’t really sure what they meant by Contributors Day, but it turns out they take the community built and open source aspects of WordPress pretty seriously.
Contributors day took place in a smaller shared workspace called the Impact Hub Seattle in Pioneer Square. Participants gathered together to  contribute to the WordPress product. The group divided into teams to work on everything from documentation to help desk questions, to directly addressing bugs, to working on updates. No need to have advanced programming skills. People contribute as they are able to, and there is place for everyone who wants to participate.
Mind.
Blown.
OK, so obviously, I’m new to the world of open source, but the more I learn, the more I want to learn. I’ve been using WordPress since 2008, but until now, I never bothered to learn much about how it was built. Now that I’ve seen that process in action, I want more.
I love this world I stumbled into.
WordPress Meetups
I learned that there are regular WordPress Meetups here in Seattle (also, around the world for those of you not in Seattle). I will be checking these out, so look for me at a Seattle WordPress Meetup soon.
I kept yelling through the wall that it was bedtime and that she needed to settle down, but she was no where near ready for that.
She burst out of her room, breathless with questions: Could she bring crayons to kindergarten? Will there be show and tell? Is it ok to put the crayons in her backpack?
There were more questions, but I can’t remember them all. I tried to answer them as I could while steering her back to her room.
Yes, you can put crayons in your backpack, I told her. And we will need to get you a new backpack for school.
Her face darkened a bit: “But, my backpack is already packed.”
Kindergarten starts in 78 days.
I examined her backpack with her, and together, we removed the items, piece by piece, so she could tell me about each one.
There were, of course, the crayons. And a piece of paper so she can color on it. She explained to me that she folded the paper so it will fit in the back pack.
She also packed a football because at kindergarten she might learn to “do sports.”
And a red block because red is her favorite color.
And a hairclip in case her hair gets in her face. To me, this last item was most remarkable because she resists all my attempts at keeping her hair out of her face, especially hair clips.
I explained again that we will buy her a brand new big kid backpack for school, because she’d had her old toddler backpack since she was two. So she put it on to demonstrate that it still fits.
I finally got the backpack away from her, and convinced her that backpacks are not safe to sleep in. And she finally settled down and fell asleep – no doubt dreaming about playgrounds, coloring, show and tell, and “doing sports.”
On the other hand, I am still wide awake, marveling at her love of learning, her exuberance, and relishing the fact that we have 78 days left until the start of kindergarten. Also, I’m panicking a little, because there are only 78 days left until the start of kindergarten.
Prospective kindergartners, along with their parents, shuffled and herded themselves into the little elementary school cafeteria. The room was thick with nervous energy, excitement, squirmy 5-year-olds who have not yet learned to sit still for an assembly, and information packets fanning at the summer heat.
This was just an introductory meeting – an open house for families new to the school. These children will not start school for 3 months, but school related anxiety is already starting to kick in. At least for the parents.
If you look at my daughter, you’d likely see something like this:
But as a parent, I’m more likely to see something like this:
Looking around the room, it was easy to distinguish the parents with older children, who had ushered a child through kindergarten before, from those who were encountering kindergarten as a parent for the first time. The wide-eyed, deer in the headlights look of those in that second set gave them away. Yes, I’m a first time parent of a kindergartener as well.
The information packet introduced the school, advised of upcoming getting-to-know-you playdates at the playground through the summer, and included a list of skills children would need to master in order to be ready for kindergarten.
The kindergarten readiness checklist is quite long, a couple pages, but it was helpful. It is simple things, such as the kids should know the numbers 1-10, sing the abc song, and go potty independently. Most of the items she mastered long ago, and others, we have the summer to work on. I did give her a long name to learn to spell.
On the other hand, I went through all the documents front and back and saw nothing about kindergarten readiness for parents. So help me out in the comments section. What do I need to do to get ME ready for her to go to kindergarten? What should I be prepared for.
I’m pretty confident that she’s more than ready for kindergarten. I’m not quite so sure about me.
I took this picture 4 years ago at my husband’s graduation. We were sitting there for hours waiting for the graduates to walk in and the commencement ceremony to begin.
While we were sun-baked in the bleachers, my husband was waiting in a holding area, before they allowed the graduates to ceremoniously walk in and take their seats.
Isn’t it interesting how so many of the big things often involve so much waiting? The waiting room at the ER, the doctors office, waiting to see if treatment takes hold, waiting for results.
I hate wait.
And yet I waited 25 years to finally graduate myself.
I didn’t walk at graduation, and they won’t even start mailing the diplomas until July. But I checked my transcripts, and it’s there.
I did it.
For real.
And that was the easy part.
Now, I’ve got to find a job to pay off a couple decades worth of student loans.
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