Family picture

I had my first-ever parent conference yesterday. I've been ignoring them for three years because I imagined they would go like this:

Year 1:

Z.'s First Teacher: Z. is great. She's your first baby and I've had three and been running this class for a million years, so let me tell you, you're doing everything wrong.
Me: (cries)

Year 2:

Z.'s First Teacher: Z. is great. I am dying of cancer and I'm here on time every day. What excuse do you have for being too depressed to get her to school on time?
Me: (cries)

Year 3:

Z.'s Third Teacher: Z. is great. We sure wish she didn't miss play time every single day.
Me: (hems and haws. Manages not to cry until returning home.)

None of these scenarios happened, you understand, *because* I imagined them, and that gave me the foresight to avoid them. I never even signed up for a conference before this year. Also, until this year, all the times were in the morning, and in the winter I don't do so well with mornings.

This year, though, I signed up. Valiantly, I persisted in signing up, time and again! I missed the first two, because they were in the morning (see winter mornings and me, above), and then I asked if I took an afternoon appointment (they were right there on the schedule) whether Z. would have coverage. Z.'s current teacher said fine, so yesterday I showed up and Z. went to after care for a bit, and everything zipped along. It helped that Current Teacher had written up a two-page, single-spaced evaluation of Z.: it was organized by category like "Social Development" and "Cognitive Development," and she gave it to me in advance and I loved it! It was like getting to spy on my kid in school, and what mom doesn't long for that chance?

The conference was parent catnip, I tell you. Z. is a knockout, an artist, a dancer, a performer, a compassionate friend, a champion of memory feats, full of Yiddishkeit. What could be better?

Well. Her teacher had put aside a picture Z. made of her family. In it, all of her grownups are color-coded. A. is blue, Uncle Donor is red, my father is yellow, etc. In it, my mother, Z., and I are all purple. And I'm vast. I take up a third of the page, and Z. has herself nestled up against me, and we are looking at each other, and everyone else looks into the center, the constellation of her family revolving around us. Z.'s a little too little to make faces that smile, but the lines that represent our mouths are clearly doting ones.

I know I will become more and more peripheral to her. I know that process will be painful to me in lots of ways. But oh, oh, oh. This week my Doodle filled my heart to overflowing.