the misadventures of chloe, part 2

Day 2

Chloe watched Barney on DVD while getting dressed, so she would not remember that she did not want to go to school.

She came home without her pencils.

Day 4

Chloe came home with a very wet diary.  I asked her what happened, and she said, "It's rainin'."  It was not.  On my husband's suggestion I hung the diary behind the refrigerator to dry.  It did, so now she has a rather rumpled but very crispy diary.

Day 5

Chloe has not been eating her packed lunch.  Her class adviser and I had a written exchange, where she explained that the class has a supervised lunch break, but Chloe does not want to eat lunch, only the snacks.

Day 6

Chloe came home with a box of crayons-- not hers.

Day 7

Chloe came home with a box of crayons-- hers-- but with only half the crayons in the box.  The pencils are missing again.

Day 8

Chloe came home without her diary.  The reminders were pasted in her Science notebook.  She needed to bring 4 long folders with fasteners, which I have to buy from National Bookstore on my way home.

Day 9

The diary reappeared, wet again.  Back it went behind the refrigerator.  Now the pages are looking decidedly tattered.

Day 11

Chloe came home with another child's lunch box and a spoon.  Her own spoon and fork are missing.

I had to go to the department store to buy a new water bottle so we could hopefully avoid wet diaries and books.  Now she needed to bring 9 color-coded folders for her folio.  It's fortunate that I have to pass through Megamall on my way home, where the bookstore is just a short detour away.  It's unfortunate that the neighboring shoe stores have their end-of-season sale.  It's stressful, I tell you.  I also got the new water bottle, with a couple of microwaveable bowls thrown in.

Day 12

I am waiting for 4:00 pm so I could call home and find out what she has lost this time, whether the new water bottle is fine, and if I have to go to National Bookstore again.  I tell myself that she'll get used to the big school, that she will stop declaring she doesn't want to get dressed because her school is closed, that she'll enjoy it soon, that we'll settle into a routine of peaceful mornings getting ready for school.

But in the meantime, darn, it's tiring!

the misadventures of chloe, part 1

Alright, I mislabeled it.  It just doesn't sound humorous if I called it 'The Travails of a Mother Raising A Mightily Tiresome But Dearly Beloved Six-year-Old.'

Chloe entered first grade this school year.  It's a big school.  From her pre-school class of only 8 kids, they're now 33.  I shudder to think of the noise level they can generate.  And because I thought it was fashionable to display some separation anxiety, I took a leave from work on her first day of class.  Heck, I even took her picture at 6:00 am and posted it on Facebook.

I went with the school bus and delivered her to her classroom, counting the things she brought and counting the little kids who were already crying in the room.  I didn't see if she joined in the tearful getting-to-know-each-other session because the teacher made us parents leave.  I joined the other parents milling in the grade school lobby-- there must be about 3 dozen of us-- and took comfort in the fact that they all looked as worried as I was.

That was when I realized that I had labeled all of Chloe's things: her pencils, bags, water bottle, notebooks, but I forgot to label her.  She would not lose her school things but she could lose herself.  I freaked out.  Chloe is trained not to speak to strangers, and so I was sure she would not say her name even if somebody asked, but little kids often display a tendency to trust grown-ups if they seemed kind or acted authoritatively.  I thought it was so easy for someone to get inside the grade school building, pretend to be a parent, and get a small child from the classroom.  Sure, there was a guard at the entrance to prevent unaccompanied kids from getting out, but would he stop an adult with a kid in tow?

I had to call my husband.  He suggested I calm down and go home, and just wait for the school bus to bring the kid after school.  I did.  I attacked the laundry, ironed clothes, rearranged my study, all the while wondering if Chloe ate her lunch, if she cried, if she'd made friends, if she'd agree to go to school the following day.  And yes, I wondered what I'd do if the school bus didn't come.  Then I waited for 4:00 pm, calling the school bus monitor twice to make sure they got my daughter from class (well, she had no ID yet, remember?).

Chloe arrived, disheveled and hair undone.  Her face was blotched from crying.  Her lunch bag looked like the victim of a bear attack.  Privately I wondered if it was too soon for her to go to a big school, but for now, she was home.

"Chloe," I asked, "did you cry in school?"
"Yes," she said.
"Did you sleep?"
"Yes."
"Are you going to school again tomorrow?"
"NONONO."

There is no tuition refund.  I'll just remember the name tag.