Today was Aitch’s first day of school. I wasn’t the only parent in the schoolyard wiping away a tear as I waved good-bye to my great big boy, off on his own for the first—

Oh, right. That was someone else. Our school had a “soft open” today—no, nothing like a cold open; more like “Orientation Part Trois.” Parents and kids attended for an hour (again), visited the classroom (again), met the teacher (again), and went home. Tomorrow, the kids attend solo for two hours, and so on extending the actual in-class time via a complex Fibonacci sequence until they finally hit a full day of kindergarten around Thanksgiving.

I suppose there are kindergarteners out there who might benefit from the dip-the-toe approach to school immersion. My Aitch is not one of them. He reacted much as he did during his last two orientation experiences: he expressed his anxiety about the situation by behaving very badly, something he would probably have been too intimidated to do if I were not there. (I know, wishful thinking, but in four years of preschool we’ve only had one negative report about his behavior, even during periods when he was throwing tantrums at home every day.)

We had a tussle over a lollipop that the teacher had given him in his “goody bag” (at 9:30 a.m.! Why is she handing out candy first thing in the morning?). I said he couldn’t eat it; he put it, wrapped, in his mouth. I told him he could no longer hold it; he bit into it. I tried to take it away from him, and he hauled off and hit me.

I didn’t know what to do. At home that would call for a serious time-out accompanied by a harsh admonishment, neither of which I wanted to perform in that setting. At this point we were about 45 minutes into the 1-hour orientation, and we had done everything we needed to do (including filling out forms that asked which “person or person’s” were authorized to pick up the child— GOD is it too much to ask that teachers pluralize correctly? They have college degrees, don’t they, and are supposed to be qualified to teach that stuff?!) , so I just marched him out of there.

When we got home, Aitch got that serious time-out and we canceled the beach outing we were planning. Instead, he had the pleasure of attending me at the RMV and then at a car inspection. I’m still aghast that he hit me on the first day of school, and I’m seriously wondering if it’s too late to hold him back another year, but I suspect he will be fine once school starts for real. I am a bit concerned now that we’ve accompanied him to school on three separate occasions, and tomorrow when we actually have to leave him behind, he’s going to freak.

What a crappy day.

Apropos of nothing…did anyone else watch the convention coverage on PBS last night? The look on Gwen Ifill’s face when they cut to her after Sarah Palin’s speech was priceless. It’s going to be an interesting season.