Hellobee

It didn’t happen on the first day of school. Despite the rain and the general chaos of getting the kids up and out of the house, we made it to school on time, albeit just as the bell was ringing. I made a quick stop at the kindergarten parents’ cheers and tears breakfast, said hello to a few moms, and rushed home to make it in time for a conference call at 9 a.m. When the girls got off the bus later that afternoon with happy smiles, I thought, this might be too good to be true. And of course a few days later, I discovered how true that was.

It was the Monday of the second week of school. Everything seemed to be going smoothly, when per usual, a tiny little event spiraled out of control resulting in perhaps the worst morning of my kids’ school-age life so far. And if you know anything about the ups and downs we’ve had with my now third-grade daughter HJ, that is saying a lot.

It was about 5 minutes before the bus was due to arrive. HJ could not find the lanyard that for some reason she absolutely needed to take to school with her. We tore through the house and garage looking for it and frantically called Mr. Juice to see if he knew where it was, but I already knew the turn had happened and HJ was not going to calm down without finding it.

This has been a not uncommon occurrence for HJ since she was a toddler. She has severe anxiety, especially with transitions, and a tendency to latch on to small objects that may seem meaningless to everyone else. In the past, before she started taking the bus regularly to school, this resulted in many tardies to the point of embarrassment. The difference this time was I had a younger child who also had to get to school on time. Poor Lila. Out of necessity, I expect a lot from her. So that is how I found myself, on her fourth day of kindergarten, barking orders to her to put on her shoes, get her backpack, open the door and see if our neighbor was at the bus stop and to start walking there by herself.

As she is also not unused to HJ’s spectacular meltdowns (by this time HJ had locked herself in the bathroom and was refusing to come out and go to school), Lila calmly obeyed my orders and started walking to the bus stop. I rushed out after her, not wearing shoes, and I’m sure looking as every bit as crazy as I felt at that moment. The bus was already waiting, the rest of the neighborhood kids had already gotten on the bus, and the other parents were watching with a concerned look.

“HJ’s not coming today!” I shouted down the street, waving the driver on once I saw that Lila had gotten on.

Somehow in the next half hour, I convinced HJ to come out of the bathroom, got her in the car (no shoes and no socks) and drove her to school.

In the middle of her tears, she started telling me all the reasons she didn’t want to go to school.

“I don’t like third grade.”

“I want to go back to second grade.”

“I want to stay with Lila all day.”

“I don’t want to go to gym or music.”

In the past I would not have said much in reply, partly because I was so frazzled and just trying to focus on getting her to wherever she needed to go, and partly because I thought she was too overwrought with emotion to listen to anything I had to say.

But the social worker she is seeing has been encouraging us to verbalize things for HJ that she can’t articulate for herself. So I tried to tell her that although it seemed hard now, she would get used to the new classroom, her new teacher, and new classmates. I tried to tell her that everything would be ok. Not sure if any of it registered but…

As we pulled into the school parking lot, I noticed the other students gathered in the playground. And there in the middle of all the big kids, I spotted Lila looking really tiny and lost. Two fifth graders seemed to be pointing her in the direction of where the kindergarteners should line up, and she was standing there with her big backpack nodding and looking really serious.

I pulled over, got out of the car, and tried to call out Lila’s name. I just wanted her to know that I had seen her, and give her a little encouragement after the rough start to our day. Well, it turned out she couldn’t hear me, so instead of continuing to look like a crazy mom repeatedly calling out her kid’s name in the parking lot, I focused on getting HJ out of the car and into school, which was no easy feat.

The principal met us at the car door, but seeing that HJ still didn’t have her socks and shoes on, told me to help her get them on and then bring her inside. That in itself took about 5-10 minutes, with much renegotiating about how tight her laces were, etc… and various delay techniques from HJ that I don’t know why I still give in to.

Eventually, we made it into the door and I dropped off my still crying child to the principal, who is very good, and very firm, and said to me, “Walk away Mom, it’s ok, just walk away.” She didn’t have to physically take HJ from me this time, but she kind of had to do a body block and I heard HJ saying to the principal, “I don’t like you. You’re mean. I don’t want to go to school. I want Lila…”

I was mortified.

After walking away, my thoughts turned again to Lila, and I headed back to the playground to see if she was still looking for where to go. I saw her kindergarten teacher rounding up the kids in the back, so I started walking that way, and had almost reached her when the assistant principal stopped me gently and said, “Sorry, mom, no parents on the playground.”

And that’s when the tears started. Totally embarrassing, but I couldn’t help it after everything that had happened in the past hour.

“Just wanted to check on Lila,” I tried to explain. “HJ’s having a hard time, and..” it was too complicated to get into everything. I probably just looked like a crazy mom who wasn’t ready to let her child go to kindergarten!

“Don’t worry, we’ll make sure she makes it in ok,” she told me.

Completely defeated, I walked back to my minivan, hoping none of the other moms and teachers would see me wiping away my tears. Just then I noticed the principal was standing right across from my car, and there was no way to avoid her.

“Don’t worry, Mom,” she said. “We got Ms. R. and Ms. T to come and get her,” she told me. They had gotten HJ’s 3rd grade teacher and her 2nd grade teacher to both come and get her. Oh, Lord. Thank God for this school.

“It’s harder on you than them,” she added.

Later in the day, Lila’s kindergarten teacher emailed me to tell her she had gotten to class fine, and was having a perfect day. A few minutes later, the principal emailed me a photo of a smiling HJ in class with the subject “Happy Girl.” I had never felt so relieved, thankful, and still embarrassed at the same time.

At the end of this very long week, after a couple more rough transitions with HJ at swimming and on the bus, and various meltdowns, I had a little heart-to-heart with my five-year-old at bedtime.

“I’m very proud of you, Lila,” I told her. “You’re doing such a great job at school, and at gymnastics, and swimming, and helping HJ. You’re really growing up.”

Her response?

“Mommy, if you see me blinking really fast, it’s because I have something in my eye. It’s not because I’m crying.”

Oh, Lila. It’s ok to be sad, and happy, and I hope that all of these things that you go through as you are growing up that are hard and difficult, make you into a more compassionate and loving person. Even if most of the time, I wish that you didn’t have to go through them at all.

I didn’t tell her all those things, maybe I should have. But I hope that somehow she still understands, my little, brave, 5-year-old kindergartner and younger child who has a lot more on her plate than she should. I hope you know how really proud I am.