Scrambled.

It was a hectic, emotional day. First day of school for my 3rd grader and her baby sister, a PreK 3 year old. We are at a new house, a new school, they need to make new friends, get used to a new routine, and frankly the enormity of what I am asking them to do and do cheerfully hit me today.

My PreK kid went straight into her classroom, ready to play and ready to greet the day. Her older sister was explaining things to her in a calm soothing voice like you might use with a skittish animal, but the baby seemed content and happy to play with the toy shopping cart and baby dolls in the "dramatic play center". Finally it was time to take my 3rd grader to her classroom so we hugged baby sister good bye and let ourselves out. She never even looked back at us.

Walking in silence towards the 3rd grade class room I looked at my 8 year old, remembering the tears and frantic grabbing after me when she was the little one being left at daycare for the first time. Now she has a sassy little bob of hair and her feet are nearly as big as mine. I could tell by the guarded look on her face she was nervous so I started chatting about the girls she had met at "Meet the Teacher" day, subtly reminding her of their names. We realized that the 3rd graders were supposed to meet in the cafeteria, so we headed down the hallway with me still blithely blabbering and she, my little chatterbox, giving me one word answers.

I left her in the cafeteria with her class and seated between the two girls she knew and hoped for the best. She looked at me a little tremulously as I waved good-bye. In her eyes I could see the little toddler who begged me not to leave her 6 years ago. It hurt.

I went home and cleaned furiously, unpacked, broke down boxes with insane energy. I washed dishes, I organized shelves, I swept the floor, I vacuumed the rug, I wiped down counters and put away toys. I had set the timer for 2 1/2 hours to make sure I was on time to get the baby and I was out the door like a shot when it rang out. I grabbed my camera on impulse as I dashed out so i could maybe get a few cute shots of baby at closing circle time or hugging a new friend goodbye. I parked my car in the driveway a few minutes later and started toward the classroom. I was just climbing the steps to her portable I heard the sound that makes your hair stand up, a wailing bloodcurdling YELL from my preschooler. I peeked in the window and while the teacher was valiantly trying to sing Itsy Bitsy Spider with the other kids, over the deafening roar. My baby was in the back with the assistant SCREAMING HER HEAD OFF and what she was screaming was plaintive, powerful and persistent, "I WANT MY MOMMY!" The assistant caught my eye in the window and motioned me in frantically. I walked in and baby launched herself into my arms sobbing and hiccuping and she said to me, "I never want to go to school AGAIN!" The assistant told me she had been fine till some boys started crying for their Moms and it seemed to spread from there. I noticed two small boys were also sniffling and teary but neither of them had the insane window rattling fury of my bellicose beauty. I grabbed her bag and scooped her up and mouthed, "I'm sorry!" at the lead teacher as we hustled out the door.

Later, over some mac and cheese we discussed the day, she said, "School is terrible Mama!" When pressed she admitted she had fun at playground and centers and playing with other kids, but she suggested next time I just come with her. She also shook her head sadly and said, "I never even got to see Sister."

Yup. I forgot to tell her that 3rd grade and PreK aren't in the same class, heck they are not even in the same building. She was devastated. This made my misapprehension for my 8 year old even bigger. I set the timer again to leave and to go to my older child at a moment's notice. I kept my cell phone on my hip in case of a frantic phone call from her teacher or principal or possibly the police. My sunny gregarious toddler had crashed and burned in class, surely my sensitive artist/poet/singer/dancer would come home permanently curled in the fetal position and suffering dehydration from the copious crying.

The baby and I entered the cafeteria 3 hours later with great trepidation, me looking for a sad eyed brunette and she looking for roving preschool teachers who might come and separate us. When I finally saw my little tween she beckoned me over with an assertive "come here" gesture so I hustled to her, prepared to whisk her to the car before the inevitable tears could start. Before I could say a word she told me brusquely, "Come on! I have a lot of homework to do and SO DO YOU!" As we trotted off she was waving at new friends and yelling goodbye to her teacher and telling me in rapid fire detail about her day before announcing as she buckled herself into the car, "Today was the best day EVER!"

For dinner we had bacon, star fruit off our tree and scrambled eggs. They match my brain at this point.

What I did Today: Museum Edition

I walked all over Key West today hauling kids who were alternately happy and murderous... walk with me will you?

Our first stop, the fully air conditioned and utterly delightful Florida Keys Eco Discovery Center which since it is located in a sort of janky end of town made me worried it would also be janky. But it was very well done and a great example of as our guide said, "our tax dollars at work" should you be in Key West I'd recommend it!

Then we walked to the awesome and inspiring Key West Lighthouse and Keeper's Quarters Museum, where I learned the fascinating fact that the lighthouse was tended three times in it's history by female lighthouse keepers, all of whom inherited the job from their husbands. The lighthouse is located directly across from the Hemingway House, which I found out later was built and lived in by the Tift family, who made their fortune in ship wreck salvage.

Then we decided to get some lunch at a delightful little bistro called Six Toed Cat, after the famous polydactyl cats that inhabit the Hemingway garden. I had a turkey bacon panini to share with the baby, my oldest had a garden salad, Lee got a burger and we all shared the shoe string french fries which were hot, crispy and had just the right amount of salt. There was fresh squeezed limeade on the menu (delicious!!) so I got a glass of that, but then hit the ice water pretty hard because it was HOT out there today and we had been sweating buckets. The kids were sucking down waters as well. The tables are shaped like 6-toed paws and it was inside in the a/c so very pleasant.

Then we marched down to The Key West Shipwreck Museum and climbed the 65 foot tall tower overlooking Key West and the reef and my oldest got to hold a 65 pound bar of Spanish silver that was lost at sea hundreds of years ago before being recovered in the late 80's.

Then we were off to The Museum of Art and History at the Custom House and saw some really cool interactive pieces of sculpture where an artist had created life sized 3-D renderings of some famous paintings and you were encouraged to climb into them and interact with them and even take pictures of yourself posing in them. Meanwhile cameras are trained on you and the images are displayed on video screens that are placed in picture frames along the staircase. Pretty neat! The 2nd floor was devoted to Keys history with a neat exhibit about Flagler's trains down to here. I didn't realize that the project cost 700 lives, millions of dollars, opened in 1935 and then was blown away in the Labor Day hurricane of 1935! Some of our existing car bridges are built on the very bones of Flagler's lost dream.

The kids were pretty hot and tired at this point so we made a quick stop at Mattheessen's Ice Cream for a little pick me up. I had strawberry, the kids got something called "Papa Smurf" which was blue and had tiny marshmallows in it. I am not sure they got the implications of EATING PAPA SMURF and that it puts them squarely into Gargamel territory, but it was like 112 degrees out there and I guess he was a smurfing good way to bring down their core temperatures.

And then our last stop of the day was Truman's Little White House and it was so freaking cool. The house is done with original furnishings from Truman's days there, if you have Florida relatives of a certain age you will KNOW what type of furnishings they had. Rattan furniture in tropical print fabric, geometric pottery style ash trays, mahogany wet bar, jalousie windows, the whole business. It was everyone's Miami grandma's condo from 1954 in there, I loved it! The one drawback was keeping a very tired toddler from trying to climb into Bess Truman's bed to take a nap. The BEST PART was the tour guide talking about all the bills and laws that Truman signed at his small living room desk there, and she said, "He was working in health care back then. He was trying to create Medicare and it was very unpopular, people were calling him a socialist and all kinds of things, he left office with a 22% approval rating, worse than Nixon! And yet I know that is a program that a lot of us here depend on TO THIS DAY!" I wanted to go up and hug that woman, I really did. Apparently when Johnson signed Medicare into law he signed it at the Truman library to honor the work Truman had done.

Then we went home. I meant to make a key lime pie for dessert but all I had energy for was to get the kids to pick the limes off our tree and then make them some scrambled eggs for dinner. Key Lime Pie with recipe TOMORROW!