First week of Pre School

September 1st 2014, about 8.40 am.  In a lull in the hullabaloo of getting our older girl to school and initiated there, we left to bring our younger girl to PRE school.   There was no knighting there or big ceremonies or hullabaloo.  In fact it was kind of sad.  A rather depressing handing over of the parents duties to other others who would become significant others over the course of a year or two.  I think it was too soon.  No more full days of "two of us",  me running along side keeping her from driving her little motorcycle too fast down the hill.  I think she wanted the return, or to continue those days also.

She cried hard when she realized we were leaving.  I wanted to give her a goodbye kiss but the teacher whisked us both out of the classroom, saying it is better to make it quick and no lengthy goodbyes and hanging around.  Oh, hanging around is my style, I thought sadly.  I didn't get a kiss and our little new pre schooler did not want to be there.

On the second and third days I took her myself and it went even worse.  When she realized I was taking her over to the pre school and not the park, she said she didn't want to go.  When I got in to the school, she didn't want to take off her outside shoes, nor her jacket nor have me leave.  The teacher picked her up and was going to take her to the classroom.  That was a bigger mistake.  She doesn't like other adults touching her.  She is afraid of other adults at first and she started kicking and crying hard.  Bad idea space cadet.  But the teacher got her to the classroom.

Hiding Place

Later, when I came for her, I got the report that she had run to a hiding place and had pretty much stayed there.  She had come out because some candy was being handed around for someones birthday.  So she showed herself for the candy.

The third day was pretty much the same except that I got her into her playing clothes and school shoes and escorted her myself into the classroom.  I didn't let the teacher touch her, let alone pick her up.  She ran right off, which I thought was a good sign, but it wasn't. She ran off to her hiding place.  The teacher assured me that many kids do this.  Its OK.  But I returned to get her later before lunch and she had gone through two pairs of clothes because she didn't want anything to do with the pre school, not even the toilet.  But the teacher assured me that she was getting better.  She had come out of her hiding place to sit with the kids during the singing.

I had joked with my little girl in the morning on the second day that she was breaking my heart by crying.  But she warned me on the third day "Daddy, I'm going to break your heart," by crying of course.  She did.  I mean, she broke my heart, by crying.

My friend told me his wife suffered from parental guilt, but he didn't.  I looked up some stories to find out what parental guilt was about, but it didn't fit my parental guilt.  I felt terrible that I was leaving her in the hands of as of yet a stranger while I went off to work at some nonsense job doing really not important work.  I should have been with her, giving her quantity parental time and being her significant other.  I felt I was shirking my real purpose, my parental duties.  No, none of the stories on parental guilt fit MY parental guilt. (How can Huffington Post get it so wrong?)

By the fourth day I was supposed to leave her there longer for lunch.  She broke my heart YET again and I went away, YET again cursing the stupidity of a job I was or wasn't doing and thinking that this was bad.  She wasn't ready for the pre school and we should hold her out for half a year, maybe even a full year.  I would take the cut in paycheck money as it had been last year.  Um, in other words, no paycheck. 

I came back after the lunch and was again assured by the teacher that she was making headway, even though she hadn't eaten or drunk anything for lunch.  She HAD sat with the class at lunch and was not hiding.  Most of the time.  I had been able to escort her to the room without her crying and she had sat down at the table.  The teacher had put a puzzle in front of her (after I had told the teacher that she liked doing puzzles).  But I thought it couldn't work as it was much too simple a puzzle for her, one of those little 10 big piece puzzles.  My girl has been doing puzzles for half a year and is doing 100 piece puzzles.  They got it wrong. I should take her out and take her home and do a puzzle with her worthy of her ability.  But on the other hand, she got right to it and seemed to find some satisfaction in it.   She hadn't run off at all.  She sat with the class.

On Friday, I was released a bit of my duties.  I didn't have to take her to pre school and get my heart broken again.  I picked her up after lunch and was warmly told about her progress.  She was drinking water during the lunch with the rest of the class.  Maybe she had even had a bit of the soup broth.

And that was the first week of school.  Is it worth it?  I mean should I take her out and have her wait another year?  I'm afraid, I wont be able to tell that till five or ten years down the road.  When she is a teenager and we will agree that she should have spent more time with her parents when she was younger.  You know those conversations you have with your parents way way after the fact, "yeah we should have started you later in the pre school, kept you at home more to enjoy life to its fullest as a toddler."  Those conversations which politely say, "yeah you got it wrong, thanks for messing up my life".  (Currently in process at this time, my own article about the meaning of parental guilt)

AFTER TWO MORE WEEKS.  She is just about acclimated into the pre school.  She eats the lunches, well, you know, eats what she likes.  No spinach.  Sleeps there for a nap, which is good because she had stopped doing that at home and she still needed the afternoon nap.  And sometimes SHE forgets to wave to us from the window as we leave the school yard.  I look in the window and see her standing with some other toddlers by the teacher looking at some new game.   I tap on the window.  She looks up after the third tap and waves.  Then goes back to her task at hand. 

     

First week of School

Monday September 1st, 2014 6.30 am.  Oh boy, here we go again.  For the next 15 years I ll have to get up at 6.30am Monday through Friday, the whole school year.  I am just not a morning person.  I have said it before,  whoever invented the hours 6am to 9am should be locked up, and or forced to stay up till midnight every day in their crazy cell.  When I was a teenager I was severely depressed in the morning hours, almost to the point of...   Now I am hitting middle age and have to do it all over again. But I guess this time its for a good cause, namely not me, but for two wonderful little girls who I love very much.  And I will say that to myself every day as I push myself out of bed at 6.30am .... for the next 15 years.

Back in the day, kings had longer hair

 It was wonderful the first day of school.  There was some sort of knighting going on. The school is located on the square named after a famous King.  So that King was accepting them into the knighthood of the school.  A (chocolate) medallion was put around the neck of each new student as they passed into the new school.  Many pictures were taken of course.  Then we all went up and looked at the classroom of where our student would be learning most of her time I gather.  Lets hope the emphasis will be on learning.  In between we had to take our little tinier girl over to her pre school.  More on that in part 2.  Then we went back and the parents listened to the teacher give all the basics and the initial stuff to buy, information on the Internet, lunches, pay for this, pay for that and more paying.  etc.  

The second day was a bit more difficult as my wife was not there.  So 6.30: woke up, got out of bed, drove a comb across my head.  No time for tea and I don't smoke.  I had to get both girls dressed and out of there within half an hour.  Luckily the older girl took over being a big sister and got the littlest girl ready.  That was nice.  Its funny that way, it seems the more time you have, the more you just putz around and fiddle diddle.  When we have only half an hour, there is no time for mucking around.  And as any mother will know, a two year old spends half the time looking around and the attention is captured by any little piece of paper lying on the floor.  But it all worked out and I can barely believe it myself, but I got her to school by 7.45.  There were parents there LATER than myself.  Me, Mr. "Never on Time" man.

And Thursday I had to do the whole thing myself again as the wife had left even earlier for some new work.  And I was just as successful.

Each day I would kiss my new school pupil goodbye in the classroom (by the end of September we wont be allowed to leave them off in the classroom we will be limited to the entrance of the school) and then peek at her again from the open classroom door.  She was either busily opening some folder or else she was showing her desk partner some new notebook she had with princesses on it.  She likes to show off the new things she has.  That didn't work out the first day as she was wearing new princess underwear and she wanted to show all the kids she knew in her class her new princess underwear while we were on the street still.   Well, its an adult inhibition, not a kids.  In the classroom as I watched her,  she was smiling or looking over her books intently.  I was satisfied that she was satisfied in her new class, in her new school, in her new schedule.  It is a big jump from pre school to grade school, but it looks like she can handle it with a smile and some new underwear doesn't hurt.  And thus far into her school year, I have gotten her to school on time every day.

Two weeks done at the time of this writing,  um, 40 to go?  Something like that.  Who s counting?  Well, I am,  But I AM NOT counting the days, weeks, months or YEARS until i don't have to get up at 6.30am anymore.  That will just be a given.    

The point I wanted to make was for my fellow Fathers.  Let me tell you I still find it hard to believe that I could be doing this.  It doesn't feel like so long ago that all I had to do was get myself to school on time, which I didn't.  But here I am getting somebody else to school, on time.  I am being responsible and Mr. "Never on Time" man CAN change to "always on time in school" man.  You can be doing it too.  Its a problem, I wont deny that, but you can do it.  Fathers can do it too.  So push yourself out of bed and take the challenge.      

Summer Vacation part III : The Universal Mommy

I don't like this no posts for several weeks. I lose my readers, all ten of them.   I got behind because in the last weeks of August my wife was on vacation with the kids and she took this computer which I normally write on.  Something strange about having to write with "THIS PARTICULAR" utensil or that particular format or even a particular table or else you are incapacitated and the writing doesn't happen.  Well, I have a lot of subjects now backlogged in my brain.  I am sitting in my chair at the correct table, with the right computer, so lets get them down.  

Again, I have to bookmark the writings of Michael Kaplan.  Several months ago I was lucky enough to read an unreleased film script of his which could have been named "Single Dad".  About a wife who leaves her husband and the kids for her boss and her high paying executive job.  A story written more than a decade ago but ahead of its time.  What I really hated about the script was that the Father in fact became the Mother for the kids.  If there ever was a stereotypical suburban mom, HE became that stereotypical Mom, despite the fact that he was male.  That bothered me no end.  I still believe that there is or should be a distinction.  Even if the roles are switched, the Father wont just become the Mother and vice versa.  Fathers can become stay at home with the kids` Dads, but they cant become Mothers.  Is this clear?  Probably not.  Well you ll get it when the script will be released as a film which will still happen.  Or maybe he will start selling it on some digital download.  It could be a bestseller to all the stay at home dads.  In fact required reading. 

On my vacation in July my Mother went visiting away for a couple days and a good friend came up to the cottage who has a daughter a year older than my older girl. So it was two Dads and three kids. The older girls are friends and like to both go swimming a lot.  The littlest one was still a bit apprehensive and scared about the water and went in and came out, but wanted to follow her sister all around everywhere.  The towels were on the dock.  The water toys are shared or rather attempted to be shared.  The water is shallow at the shore but gets deeper as you go out.  The girls are not accomplished swimmers yet.  So, this is how the conversation went with me and my father friend.

" Blah blah blah, don't splash near the dock, you ll get your sister wet and the towels are on the dock.  Blah blah blah..."
  "Yes, blah blah, blah, hey, don't splash her face, hey, you don't do that.  Blah blah blah blah ... "
  "Uh huh. blah blah, well you have to share the water rings.  She wants to use the ring too. You have two of them, give one to her.  Or give her the board"
   " But I need the board AND the rings."
    "You don't need the board AND the rings or give her one for a while and then trade."
    "awwww Daddy.  I need them all right now."
    "You have to share them"
    "But I don't want to share"
    "Share"
    "What are you doing?  Leave your bathing suit on, you ll go back into the water."
    "But I want to take it off, its wet and I want to wrap in the towel"
    "Yeah, but... oh forget it, its OK.  So blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah.."

"No no, you cant go past the pole, its too deep"

 

    "Yes, I know, blah,  hey, don't go out too deep.  Stay by the pole.  Don't go out much farther than the pole.
     "Daddy will you go out past the pole with me?  I want you to swim with me past the pole."
    "Stay in the shallow section"
    "But its not deep past the pole in that direction."
    "Wait, I'm coming, don't go out so far past the pole.  Wait wait,  oh brrrrr, its cold.  Aiy its cold.  Cant you stay in the shallow section where it is warmer?"
    " I want to go past the pole"
    "OK, give her the board or a ring so she can swim past the pole.  Hey put your bathing suit on if you are going to come back in the water."
    "No."
    "Oh, it doesn't matter, you are only two.  Do what you like."
    "Yes, but now my daughter is starting to copy yours.  Hey, put your clothes back on, you don't go swimming in the nude.  The sheriff might come or something."
     "But she is doing it"
     "Yes, but she is 2 you are seven.  You just cant....  
     "Hey careful.  Don't go too far past the pole.  You may think you are safe because you have the rings, but you still cant swim very well. ......  "

By this point all conversation is lost.  Which is OK.  I often have to tell friends that I have to take a rain check on the conversation because my daughter is out of my sight and I have to find her or some such sort.  But what is disturbing is that BOTH me and my friend are reduced to what could be diplomatically called watching over the kids and making sure they are doing the "right" thing.  Or what could be not so politely called, NAGGING our kids.  

I am reminded of the Simpsons episode where the whole Simpson family point out the problem with Mom, Marge, is her nagging,  meeeeh, meh.  And it dawns on me that Michael Kaplan got it right with his Single Dad script and it is entirely possible that, as much as it bothers me, the father can turn into the mother, taking care of the kids.  That in fact a UNIVERSAL Mother might exist, whether it is a mother or father (or grandmother for that matter).  And the Universal OM of Mother, the universal sound of mom, is nagging the kids while he/she takes care of them. 

Kind of depressing thought really.

This theory is still in the early stages of being thought out.  I haven't tested it scientifically and it is open to comments and interpretations and even general guffaws of "that's ridiculous".  In fact I wish someone would prove me wrong.    

Unfortunately, Universal Mom doesn't necessarily include being able to cook.  Neither me nor my friend had the talent of making up a good, healthy meal for our kids.  But I blame him for giving in to his daughter and making all the kids a take out pizza with french fries for lunch.  I told my wife about that meal and I got seriously berated for that.  "Ouch, but it was Bill`s idea. No, no way, would I have given them that meal.  Yeah, I know they were eating a lot of spaghettios, but..."  Rats, the Single Dad in Michael Kaplans script could cook like a professional mofo tofu.  I cant.  Wish I could.