Kindergarten

will we get in

“I’m so anxious,” the mom said, tugging at the sleeves of her pink flannel.
I leaned in. “What are you nervous about?”
She looked at us like we were out of our minds.
“If they don’t do well here, they won’t get in.”

I went still. Won’t get in?

I must have skimmed the email we got a few weeks ago inviting us to the screening. I had assumed this was the next step after acceptance, a formality, a meet-the-teachers kind of thing.

Caroline had walked downstairs that morning in red sparkle pants, a lavender long-sleeve shirt, and a gold cardigan over it. An oversized magenta bow sat crooked in her hair.

I opened my mouth to say, “Remember we’re going to kindergarten screening today…”

But I stopped. I wasn’t going to be the kind of parent who dictates what she wears based on where we’re going. She dressed herself. I should be proud of that independence.

“This is kind of a nice event, Caroline,” I continued as it got closer for us to leave. “Are you sure you don’t want to wear your jeans?”

She looked at me and walked toward the car. We left for Flanagan Hall in her color variance.

The hall was set up with tables on the right for parents to sit and wait while the screening took place. Throughout the hall, five tables were set up as stations evaluating things like number and letter recognition, cutting, pattern making, and physical skills. Five kindergarten teachers sat one-on-one with students, rotating them through stations.

The woman sitting next to me kept adjusting her body in the folding chair, watching eagerly as her daughter finished her last station.

I turned to Clayton. He looked at me the same way I looked at him.

We had no idea this was an audition.

Caroline sat next to us at the table while we waited. I used one of the dozen school-branded pens that sat on the table to fill out the parent evaluation form they gave us. She grabbed a coloring sheet and crayons. She picked up the orange crayon and began flooding the page with the single color.

Clayton and I looked at each other. “Do you want to try coloring in the lines, honey?” I asked, scanning the room to see if any teachers might walk by and notice the messy sheet.

She shook her head, flipped over the paper, and wrote, “I LOVE YOU MOM,” on the back without asking how to spell any of the words.

I slid the paper to the front of the table as I saw the first teacher walk toward us.

“Are you Caroline?” she asked in the soft, gentle voice of a kindergarten teacher.

We watched as Caroline walked hand in hand with the teacher to the first station.

We could just hear the teacher’s low murmur from across the hall. “Hop on your right leg. Now your left.”

I watched the teacher make a mark on the paper. It looked like a check mark motion.

Next, the teacher had her throw a blue beanbag against the wall. “Try to hit the flower picture,” she said, pointing to the laminated poster taped to the brick wall.

Caroline launched the beanbag with her left hand and hit the poster perfectly. The wall also had tiny cross-shaped patterns in the brick, with small square holes in the center.

“Go ahead and try to get it in the hole,” the teacher said jokingly. “Good luck.”

Caroline picked up the beanbag and tossed it. It landed perfectly in the square.

I clenched my fist under the table. “That’s my girl,” I whispered to Clayton. He looked at me, grinning.

As they moved to the next station, I could see they were working on cutting. The teacher placed the small scissors in Caroline’s right hand and demonstrated the task of cutting out the paper dinosaur.

My chair scraped backward before I could stop it. “She’s left-handed,” I whispered subconsciously, out loud.

But Caroline looked up and said, “Can I hold them in my other hand?”

As she moved from table to table, the couple next to us reunited with their daughter. “We bribed her with ice cream if she did well,” the mom told us. “Hope we see you again,” she said, lifting her purse onto her shoulder.

On the stage, Caroline waited for her next turn, dancing back and forth.

“Oh my God,” I muttered, watching her sway back and forth on the stage, “why can’t she just keep her body still?” I watched as the teachers kept making small marks on the paper form that indicated her future.

An hour after leaving us, she skipped back in her red pants.

“She did excellent,” the teacher said.

An admissions woman approached. “Do you have any questions?”

We looked at each other. No. We did not even know what questions to ask.

We packed up and started to walk out of the hall. We got to the parking lot and I reached into my coat pocket to get the keys. I pulled out the pen I had used to complete the parent evaluation form.

“Oh my gosh, the pen!” I held it up to Clayton. “What if they keep track of them and know I took one?”

I ran back inside and handed it to the woman at the front desk.

“I’m so sorry, I accidentally took this.”

She blinked a few times, then smiled as I opened my mouth to ask, “when will we know if she’s accepted?”

“Early March,” she replied.