The empty chair at Kalib's pre-kindergarten graduation

I believe the chair would have been filled and everyone would have been happy, had it not been for errors in judgment made by Kalib's grandparents. First, he had been eager to go to "grandpa's house." Thursday night, his grandma, who was babysitting him and Lynx, told him they would go to grandpa's house the next day. He awoke in the morning ready to leave. When he found out he had to go to school first, he felt betrayed. He wanted to get in the car and go right now.

Second, his class was going to walk from the day care center to the graduation hall, about two blocks away. His grandparents misunderstood graduation to be scheduled for 3:00 PM, when actually it was scheduled for 3:30. We also misunderstood that we should go to the day care center and then walk over with them. 

We arrived at day care at 2:50, ready to walk with Kalib and his class. Kalib's class was napping. Yet, he quickly realized we were there, jumped up, headed for the classroom door to greet us and then headed for the outer door, eager to escape the building into the Ford Escape. For him, class was now over. He did not want to go back. "I'm going to grandpa's house!" he told his teacher.

"Go ahead and take him over now," a teacher/care taker told us. "The class will walk over later. He can join us then."

So, as he rang a bell his mother had given him before she left on a work trip to Portland, he hustled toward grandma and grandpa's car, certain that if he got inside, he would get out at grandma's house in Wasilla. He wanted nothing more to do with school this day - not with graduation, not with anything class related.

Margie and I left day care with Lynx, but Kalib decided to jump into his Uncle Caleb's truck and ride with him and Monica. "See you at grandma's house!" he told me.

When we reached the graduation hall, Lynx was eager to get out of the car, but he did not want to go inside a building - not to see his brother graduate, not to eat cake. He wanted only to stay in the sun and play in the outdoor air. When his grandmother tried to guide him into the graduation hall, he jerked his hand free of hers and flung himself down onto parking lot pavement in protest.

Soon, Uncle Caleb arrived with Monica and Kalib. Kalib resisted the idea of getting out of the car, because, despite what everyone had told him, he had expected it to take him to Wasilla. As for Lynx, he had just risen from the pavement. Feeling quite proud of himself, he slapped five with Uncle Caleb.

Kalib refused to go inside the building. He wanted only to go to grandma and grandpa's house. That is what he had expected to do at the very beginning of the day. He was getting quite frustrated with all the delay. Graduation did not strike him as any kind of big deal at all - not when he should be going to grandma's house. It was a tortuous wait, but finally his class showed up, walking.

Several spotted him from all the way across the street. "Kalib!" they kept calling out for him to join them. But Kalib would not.

For several minutes, Kalib refused to leave the curb and go inside. He and Uncle Caleb have always shared a very special relationship, so we left the persuasion to Caleb. He was very gentle, spoke softly and finally convinced Kalib to get up and go inside.

But once inside, he rebelled. He sat down on the floor and would not take his chair. Again, his uncle tried gentle persuasion. This time, Kalib would not yield. He would not take his chair.

Finally, he did get up off the floor, but still refused to take his chair. It remained empty, while he took a seat straight behind it, but way back in the very last row.

As his day care adults spoke in glorious hyperbole about all the experiences the students had shared during their lives at day care (one elicited lots of giggles and laughs from the students when she included potty training among their activities and accomplishments) his classmates sang two songs and then finally began to get called up one by one to receive their diplomas, Kalib sat stubbornly at the seat he had claimed in the back row.

I began to wonder if maybe some of this reticence was because he felt badly his parents, both in Portland with Jobe, were not there to see him graduate.

After graduation, Kalib's classmates posed on the bridge into the future. Each diploma contained a brief statement about that child's dreams for adulthood as articulated to a teacher. A big percentage of them, male and female alike, wanted to be police, so they could "arrest bad guys." One bright red headed boy wanted to be a fireman so he could spray water all around.

Even as he watched his classmates pose, Kalib still refused to accept his diploma.

Finally, after we convinced him his grandma needed to take a cell phone picture to text to Mom and Dad, he accepted his diploma and posed for the picture. His dream, as stated on his diploma?

"Today, Kalib wants to be a grown up, just like his mommy. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?"

As we stepped out of the graduation hall and headed toward the parking lot, Kalib instantly became happy. He stopped briefly to chat with a classmate, but not for long, because all he wanted to do was to climb into the car with grandma and grandpa. "Now we go to grandpa's house!" he exclaimed.

Soon, he and Lynx were here, at grandma and grandpa's house, for the weekend. From the moment they arrived until now, Kalib has been nothing but happy, his disposition sweet.

I believe that was really the whole thing. Stacked up against coming to grandma and grandpa's house, where he could crash an ambulance in the dirt, graduation just didn't stack up.

Still, I wish we had never gone to day care first. Had we gone to the graduation hall and waited, the way most parents did, he would have walked over with his class, would have taken his seat and everything would have worked out okay.

I think.

Comments

[WakeUpAmerica]

Don't count on it. Little kids have strong opinions. I know because I live with a five year old who bosses me around, or at least she tries to.

[annette]

Ah sweet, strong Kalib. . . . It is not always easy being little when there is so much in the world
to experience and enjoy---especially the magic of grandma and grandpa's house.

[Viva]

I'm with Kalib, I had to be persuaded to go to my own graduation from university. I'd much rather have gone to Grandma's house, too.

[grannyj]

I think graduation from pre-k is really only about the grown-ups. Kalib had that figured out pretty quickly.

[Aunty Mel]

The photo of Kalib looking cross in the back of the room while everyone is on their own wavelength is too good. And you can even spy the photographer in the glass in the back! Open it and look at it larger if you haven't already.

[chrissyinPA]

Honestly - Grandma & Grandpa's house looks a lot more fun to me as well. It seemed to me he complied pretty quickly when he was informed the pic with the diploma was "for his mom"....sweet :)