Reality Check

We are barely back into the school routine, and my youngest is already looking forward to summer. She and school have a very tenuous relationship, and it's been this way since the very beginning. It had me thinking and remembering, so as part of my regularly random series "Blasts From the Past," here's how it all began about nine years ago.

As the baby of the family, Number Four has always tagged along after her older siblings, trying to keep up, afraid that she might miss something. She's always been ready to be on to the "next thing." She couldn't wait to be born, couldn't wait to walk, and absolutely couldn't wait to go to that magical, mysterious place which her siblings called, "School." At school were wonderful, delightful things called single file, and teachers, and lunchrooms, and line leaders, and recess, and quiet chairs, and principals. Life would be good if only she could be a part of this special club called "School."

So, when Little One turned 4, I enrolled her in a half-day preschool, and she was so excited she could barely contain herself. Finally her day had arrived. Finally she was a big girl. Finally she was part of the club. Off she went without hesitation on that first day, to join the ranks of all the other lucky ducks who were part of this elite club. In anticipation of all the wonders that awaited, she skipped innocently and excitedly into the classroom wearing her new little skirt and carrying her new little bookbag. The world was her oyster, she had the tiger by the tail, she was on easy street.

And she lived happily ever after.

Until the second day. When I asked her how she liked going to school, her face scrunched in exasperation as she replied incredulously, "Well. . . I like my teacher okay. . . but we ALWAYS have to do what SHE wants to do. " It's been downhill ever since.