A Mile Wide, An Inch Deep

James comes into kindergarten with a very different skill set than most of his peers at our neighborhood school, a skill set that seems to hold a mirror up to our family, reflecting our generation, our economic class, our culture, even our personal quirks. He knows his letters, alphabet sounds, numbers, sight words. He knows every train part ever made, from the couplings to the traction rods, and can describe to you how steam and diesel engines differ in their production of energy. He knows every dinosaur ever discovered (or so it seems) and pronounces their names better than I do. He easily types "dinosaur" into the iPad, using it with better skill than most adults. But he can't write his name or put on his shoes and he will NOT draw. He's always had parents culturally willing and financially able to give him maximum attention, to read to him, to facilitate with books and videos and flashcards and toys and trips to far-flung museums his intellectual obsessions, but

For better or worse (and without my ever having been entirely cognizant of it until this moment), our little family has been largely free to operate autonomously for years, our schedules shaped (but not controlled) by the predictable waxes and wanes of Congress, but little else. And cantankerous Congress -- where nothing of importance happens before 10 am and the most critical votes each year aren't cast till after the bars are sweeping out their last diehards for the night -- has been a good fit for a family of committed night owls, heretics, and contrarians. Now the sweet lull of lazy August is interrupted by a new, unfathomable bureaucracy with its early-morning attendance, its authority figures of questionable English ("Ima?" I was tempted to ask the teacher of my child) who seem to radiate dislike for my son, its seemingly arbitrary rules, its totalitarian demands on time and financial resources. The "damned independent" streak noted (approvingly) by my

"I'm not normally a praying man, but if you're up there... please save me, Superman!" It's 5 am, I'm lying in my childhood bed in my childhood bedroom, staring up at the still-glowing stars I pasted on the ceiling some two decades before. My husband and sons don't arrive for hours, my brother not till the day after. It's feeling uncomfortably like it might really be 1992 again. I send my mom a text with a question for the coming day, figuring she'll see it in the morning morning. Instead there's a loud chime from the bedroom 12 feet from mine. "What's that?!" [alarmed!!] "It's Sarah!" [surprise and confusion!] "What did she say?!" [more evident confusion, processing concept of notes texted, not taped to the garage door! what is going on?!] "She wants to move the old furniture. ... THAT'S FINE, SARAH." [yelling as though I might be very, very far away instead of close enough to