Sharing

The first several months of school we never got the notices for sharing day until the day after. They disappeared temporarily in some recess of Jiejie's backpack and reappeared when it was too late. Then, gradually, she started showing us the notices but saying she did not want to take part. Later, she took in a few books, but was careful not to take anything that required speech or interaction. Today was the first show-and-tell Jiejie attended willingly and prepared for enthusiastically. Today, she wore a bright, crisp summer dress in white, pink and black and took a stuffed cat wearing the identical dress in stuffed-cat size.

Kindergarten is almost over. It took along time for Jiejie to take part in snack time, a long time to actually eat her lunch at school rather than on the way home, a long time to use the classroom toilet, but she told me recently --well, she didn't tell me; I was sitting in for Uma. You know Uma, the bare-hand puppet, Oobi's sister -- Uma likes to visit us and especially to go to Manhattan, but more on Uma later. Jiejie told us these things became easy because she had a best friend to do them with her, the amazing Anya. Jiejie told Uma that once you have a partner to do scary things with, they become easy, great advice for Uma who encounters a lot of scary challenges in hand-puppet life. Jiejie and Anya became best friends the day before school started at the ice cream social and have been inseparable despite gentle teacherly suggestions that the girls broaden their social circles. Well, that didn't happen, so the school will be exposing them to other friends for us when first grade comes.

Uma will be sad.