Who would want a pumpkin that's just orange?

Skipper went on a field trip. She brought home a pumpkin. (It's green and knobbly. I asked her if she had a lot of choices, and she said dismissively, "yeah, but the other ones were just orange.") She also, the same day, had her first day of kung fu aftercare, so it was a long hard day of doing hard new things. Skipper, as you know, hates to be revealed to be less than perfect, and joining a class that has been running for a month of weekdays is the sort of thing that makes her feel very exposed. The kung fu teacher said that every time Skipper seemed to be panicking and "brimming over" he asked her if she wanted to skip the thing they were doing, and she said "I will do it." Skipper's life is full of moments when she has to push forward into the thing she doesn't want to do, often because the alternative feels even worse to her. She's usually pretty tired by the end of a day of pushing painfully forward, alone, while around her other kids seem to be bobbing easily along. She's doing really well, honestly. She seems to be settling in to kindergarten, she likes her teachers and classmates, she likes school, she likes kung fu... It's just not easy. I think there will be many more moments of ease as she gets more and more comfortable in her routines, but it's never going to be just easy.