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.