Simon is home with me two days a week: Mondays and Thursdays. I made Thursday my volunteer-at-Sophia’s-kindergarten day — give Simon exposure to kindergarten, let him play a little with the big kids, give me something to do during the day when I have him. (Yes. I am selfish enough to keep the days when both of them are in school for myself.)

What do I do when I volunteer? Mostly, clerical stuff. Marvin the Robot Voice: Brain the size of a planet, and I do photocopying. I photocopy pictures for class projects. I collate papers for the students’ files. I stick handouts into the students’ bookbags. I cut out poems for projects with scrapbooking scissors that have various edges — today was the “Sunflower” design. I couldn’t cut with a scissors to make an interesting design when I was in school and I haven’t gotten any better at it in the meantime.

Meanwhile, Simon is either on the K playground, which he has to himself until recess, or near me playing with the boxes of blocks they keep in the manipulatives section (used for counting and sorting in math). He also enjoys, on the nicer, warmer days, sitting at one of the “big kids” tables and eating his lunch. He likes paging through the books in the classroom’s library. His favorite is the I Spy books, and he insists I read one to him, which I do before we leave.

One of the things I love about doing the work is spending a little time watching Sophia’s class in session. Watching how the kids and teacher interact. Watching how Sophia behaves — she usually forgets I’m there after a while. Whenever the teacher asks a question, whether about the book he’s reading, or about doing the calendar, or math, Sophia raises her hand to answer. Sometimes she gets so excited she just blurts out the answer. It’s interesting watching the way she behaves — which I have generalized in my mind to “the way all five-year-olds behave” — with the way her peers do. The differences, the similarities. One of the things the teacher has said is great about Sophia is how verbal she is, talking to everyone, articulating her ideas.

I only stay there an hour, which means I don’t get terribly much done. (Less, if the photocopier is acting up, the way it was one week.) But Simon starts to go stir-crazy after an hour, whether from lack of running around screaming or from hunger or from simple tiredness.

There are still times I wish I could home-school. But I don’t have the temperament for it, at least not right now. I don’t doubt that I could do it, but currently this school is working well for us, and more importantly, for Sophia. And I like being a small, hour-long part of it every week.