As of August 18th I will have a kindergardener in my home! Thursday was my daughter's last day of preschool but there was no hoopla as its a mixed-age class so some kids return in the fall (or summer, I should say - AUGUST?!?) while others (like my kid who is 5 1/2) go on to kindergarden.

Last week I attended a kindergarden orientation for parents of incoming students and it didn't tell me much. Perhaps the problem was that I kept reminiscing on my kindergarden days - especially my fascination with the the Letter People: inflatible characters for each letter of the alphabet. My favorite (or maybe I was scared of it...I forget WHY I was obsessed with it) was "Mr. M, with a munching mouth..." With the aid of a portable phonograph, Inflatable Mr M, who looked like a gangster out of "Guys and Dolls" sang about the various foods he enjoyed, like meatballs, macaroni, milkshakes...you get the idea.

Our class was lead by a truly groovy young male teacher, Mr. Varoski. I'm not sure how old he was, but I'm guessing he was in his early 20's or so. It was 1974 and my "cool" and exuberant teacher wore colorful psychedelic "blouses" (as my mother referred to them) and silver bangle bracelets. He drove a lime green VW bug. He had frosted blonde hair. In fact, I freaked out the first time I saw HGTV's ReDesign because Mr. V could have been the 70's version of none other than Kenneth Brown. Oh, wait a minute, Kenneth Brown IS the 70's version of Kenneth Brown!

(You gotta love that designer wisdom)