Anarita loved kindergarten. One reason she loved it was because her mom had taught her well. Anarita already knew how to read. Her mom used to sit and read to her almost every afternoon, and then one day, her mom told her to read instead. It took forever and was very hard and exhausting (and she had plenty of help from mom), but that day she read her first book: Hop on Pop. "Up Pup Pup is Up....." She felt sorry for students who didn't know how to read yet and only had school to learn. If she ever became a parent, she wanted to teach her kids to read before they started school.
For her, school was fun. One of her favorite parts of kindergarten, and there were many, was The Feely Meely Box. At the end of morning, the kindergarten kids sat in The Pit. The Pit was an octagon with three steps down all around, where classes gathered to be read to, to sign up for morning attendance and lunch, and so on. The Teacher would grab a Kleenex box that had been covered in long, pink faux fur and googly eyes - The Feely Meely Box. If she thought you were good, you might be invited to stick your hand in the box, feel around, and pull out a prize. Maybe it would be a plastic ring. Anarita's doctor's office had her favorite plastic rings - they were Disney rings, white plastic with metallic red, green or blue paint on the faces of Pluto, Daffy, Goofy, Mickey or Minnie. But one day she got to stick her hand in the box and she pulled out the best thing of all - a pink butterfly magnet! She was too young to realize that what she really loved was praise and approval from adult authority figures, but at the moment she loved that magnet!
She went home and her mom placed it on the fridge. It was so beautiful. And it stayed beautiful until one day it somehow got knocked off the fridge and the dog chewed it up.
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