I spuddle.

Because this is such a huge rite of passage (mostly for me because my life now involves the words “alarm” and “clock” together in the same sentence),  you’d think that I’d have been there with my camera, capturing every single shining moment for the future.   Such as, for example, this one:

But I did not do that very much because my camera is broken and also because I’ve been finding the whole thing so overly intensely stressful and anxiety-inducing that I’ve been having too many panic attacks to actually frame artful shots of The Bun’s happy face.   Which is good because he isn’t particularly happy.   The IDEA of school has been fantastic, he’s been painfully excited about its eventuality.   But I just don’t think he wanted “eventually” to mean “NOW”, per se.

We had our first “day” of school on Wednesday, during which time parents and kids went to the classroom in groups of three and learned the complex system of snack requirements and filled out paperwork.   The Bun was overwhelmed by the idea that he’d have to choose a blue piece of paper or a green one.   WHAT TO DO ?  And I was stymied by the snack thing, I’ll admit it.   For one thing, The Bun cannot eat anything crunchy or difficult to chew or with peel on without gagging and vomiting wildly.   This is something to do with oversized tonsils — I don’t fully understand it either.   So in a school where snack time is all “Bring an apple and we’ll share it with the class!”, my brain begins to spin.   But he’ll choke!  And vomit!   And thus be socially alienated from the other kids!   They’ll call him The Puker!  He’ll never live it down!  Also, how can an apple be shared with the classs?   One apple?  FIFTEEN KIDS?  While I asked a flurry of intense, snack-related questions, The Bun burrowed up the back of my sweater and masqueraded as a giant hump on my back.   Unfortunately, this had the bonus effect of — unbeknownst to me — pulling my shirt in such a way that my ENTIRE RIGHT BREAST was exposed.   I guess it was about twenty minutes into my snack-related questions when I realized that my boob was cold.    NO ONE TOLD ME, PEOPLE .    Not one person made a secret signal to suggest that they were all enjoying (or not enjoying, as the case may be) the sight of my exposed nipple.   What kind of school is this?   Already I’m getting paranoid, like they all know each other from past educational experiences, such as violin class, which we did not actually DO, and that they communicate using only their extrasensory supermummy powers.   Such that while I was rabbiting on about how raw carrots could be problematic for my wee bairn and he has big tonsils, don’t you know, they were saying to each other  — silently — HEY, DON’T TELL THE NEW CHICK ABOUT HER BOOB!  HA HA HA!    Yes, I think they were laughing.   Inside.   Luckily for me, I was wearing a bra.   Sadly, it was transparent.    This is the kind of unexpected bump in the road that happens to me.   It is.   As a result of my subsequent humiliation, I instantly forgot everything I’d learned about the snacks.

Here, The Bun artfully demonstrates how Mummy looks when she goes out, only his shirt wouldn’t stretch far enough and I wouldn’t allow him to rip a $35 t-shirt.

The next day, the kids were to be dropped off for one hour to be taken on a school tour and introduced to some other kids and generally to take baby-steps towards their first REAL DAY.   The night before, The Bun announced remorsefully that actually he wasn’t going to be able to attend because he’d made other plans.   As he’s four, I thought this was pretty unlikely.   “What will you be busy doing?”  I said.   “I’ve made some plans to visit Valdes Island,” he said loftily.   “So I’m sure you understand.”   Er, right.   Except for NO.    He stayed up very late the night before, worrying about how monsters would eat him if he went to school and also he didn’t really want to go and the teacher would probably be mean to him and if I wasn’t there, I’d probably feel badly when he DIED from a MONSTER BITE.

He went.   He had fun.  At least, he wasn’t one of the cryers.  I thought it was all good, but when night time rolled around, there we were again.   “I’m afraid I can’t go to school tomorrow,” he said.  “I’m going to be busy.   Oh, well.”    And there we went again.   Scared!  Monsters!   Busy!   No time!  ANXIOUS!

He went.   He had fun.   But this time, I believe he may have been one of the cryers.   At least the teacher said his transition was “difficult”.  I don’t know what that means, but I’m guessing “tears”.    HE claims he had fun.  But he’s disgusted — DISGUSTED — that he’s now spent what amounts to three days at school (in his mind) and he has yet to LEARN HOW TO READ.   It’s an outrage!  A crime against humanity!  In fact, he’s convinced that every other kid was secretly taught how to read by the teacher and he’s the only one who wasn’t.  So while he was playing beanbag tag, the others were communicating lessons back and forth using Top Secret ESP  and he was LEFT OUT.   I have no idea where he gets this brand of paranoid thinking from.    Weird, huh?

Notice how the pictures, like me, are overexposed.   If anyone knows how to fix this, please advise ASAP.   I mean, other than photoshopping them back to relatively normal levels.    Hey, if only you could photoshop your life (and/or bank balance) back to normal levels, that would be good, too, don’t you think?

Filed under: Kids