Mornings are usually filled with confusion and sadness. The car ride from the house to the school, which earlier used to have Mira enthusiastically pointing out things to me has now-a-days left her concentrating on the road, wondering where our destination would be. As soon as we step into the school, she breaks into continuous crying, not loud enough to reach people standing nearby but strong enough to let me re-evaluate the decision to get her there. It is a hard moment to take her off my arms and hand her over to the teacher, as her crying reaches a higher volume and I continue walking towards the car.
Afternoons are a different affair altogether. I usually reach a bit early so that I can see Mira having lunch through the glass window – the last activity of the school before they call it a day. There’s a good amount of calmness on Mira’s face as she struggles to balance the spoon till her mouth. She confidently walks towards the nanny when she’s done – gets herself cleaned up and willingly changes into a clean dress, all ready to be carried back. It is at this time that I bang open the door and yell out a lively “Mira”, while all she gives me is a pleasant confident smile, not a sigh of relief, mind you and raises her arms to be picked up for the journey home.
So, while every morning I swear that this is going to be our last day in school, every afternoon cheers me up and lets me give the next day a shot.
The confusion finally got to me today and I decided to take a call. Realizing my inability to think objectively, I turned to Papa for the decision and promised to stand by it. We did a bit of research – the school teachers shared that Mira’s crying lasted just till the time she saw me around and that she changed into a reasonably happy child after that. It's nothing but separation anxiety from the mom, Papa gave his expert comment.
And so, while mornings might continue to remain tough, we’ve decided to go ahead with the school for a while.
A friend tells me that sooner or later all kids start liking the school. Her’s infact takes to the floor and refuses to go back– 5 different bribes and the promise to come back the next day just about manage to get her to the gate.
While I’m surely not looking forward to Mira doing the same, but a bit of excitement will certainly be great!
******
Mira’s Papa and I are very similar people. I mean, given a certain situation, I’m sure both of us will reach the same conclusions, for the same set of values and reasoning that we share. But, there’re other differences though – I tend to get a bit more emotional and subjective, just the way all women are while Papa has a more rational and “I can see through the façade” kind of approach, which probably all men have, I guess.
These differences keep cropping up every now and then – take the last Friday’s incident for instance. Just like all other days, I had gone to pick up Mira from her school – Friday was the last day of the summer camp and the school was going in for a week long break before the next session resumed. As a token of remembrance of the camp, the teacher handed over the following to me:
Let me explain, this is a frame that’s got Mira’s picture on the right, as you can see and a small piece of clay with different colored beads stuck into it, on the left. Clay with the beads is Mira’s creation – I mean, with the help of the teacher obviously, she rolled out the clay and then, put different beads onto it.
I was extremely excited to see it.
I immediately called up Papa to share the excitement, as soon as I got Mira seated into the car. After the usual long thinking pause, Papa muttered out – “Hmm….these school people come up with the best of gimmicks. See, now we parents are hooked on for long.”
Sorry…..what did I hear – GIMMICKS? And here I was, drooling over Mira’s first piece of work – her first ever creation. My mind by now had already raced through the future – visualizing different achievements of my little girl, all nicely occupying important positions in our drawing room.
Papa’s reaction was surely a bit of a damper. Did someone just say that we both think alike?
5 comments:
Its hard to see you lil one off to school especially when she is crying. Some kids do experience greater seperation anxiety than others.. don't fret. I know its easier said than done. Clay with beads looks great! BG had the same reaction when Chip came home one day with a craft!!!!
dont worry.. it is harder for you than her I promise!! My son gave us a lot of trouble too.. and would cry all day in school for a week, then he seemed resigned for some time.. after that he refused to look at me once I dropped him off.. now he cant wait for the summer vacation to end!! :P You know what I would do.. the first week, I would go shopping or some such thing first thing after dropping him off.. kept my mind off his crying and made it easier for me!! :)
Thanks Dottie & Thanks Preethi.
The school was off this whole week. The coming monday is going to be a killer for both of us :-)Like your idea of shopping Preethi, it is one thing that can cheer me up all the time:-) Let's see how we do in the coming week.
I will be putting KT into school once I quit and I am already dreading it. My head are full of questions as to whether she will like it, if she is still too young for school, what if somebody hurts her and the likes.
It must be a painful experience no seeing her cry every morning ?
I loved the clay with bears which Mira made and I am sure my hubby would have reacted the same. Men! It's difficult to understand them ;)
Hey
My girl too started her playschool this june 16th... She too cried alot for a month. Mondays were a killer after a 2 day holiday... At the time of writing this, my Genie loves going to school and wants to go even on weekends :). You can read her playschool travails at scribblermom.wordpress.com
things will be fine... I tried this trick with her to ease the process of separation anxiety... At night when she was drowsy and falling asleep, i talked about all the positive things of school. I continued to talk for 10 minutes, she wud fall asleep. I continued this for 10 days and not more :)
Post a Comment