Mama Scheherazade

Seconda loathes going to school. I’m not positive how she feels about school itself – though it doesn’t seem promising – but how she feels about going to school and the saying goodbye to her dear old Mama, we’re quite clear on. Every morning, I’m charged with the task of getting The Most Uncooperative Preschooler on the Planet and her significantly more helpful older but still not terribly jazzed about school either older brother over to their classrooms by 8:40. There are several obstacles. First is the fact that since the little one doesn’t go to bed til 10pm most nights despite the fact that she’s in bed by 8, and consequently doesn’t wake til I force her to at 8am. When she does wake, she is grumpy grumpy grumpy and refuses to get dressed or eat. When I beg and cajole and bribe and threaten enough that I manage to put some clothes on her (I give up on the food), she refuses to leave the house. When we leave the house and she realizes she must use her legs to tackle the 15 walk, she pitches a fit. When I carry her on my back as long as I am physically able, and then set her down to complete the rest of the walk on her own, perfectly capable legs, she pitches another fit.

The only way we move forward at this point – with no time to spare, incidentally – is by me becoming Mama Scheherazade.

“Ooooooh!” I’ll gasp to get her attention, “Did I ever tell you the story about the witch who was allergic to peanut butter Girl Scout Cookies?”

“Tell it to me!” she’ll demand.

“Ok, I will but you have to walk.”

She takes one angry step as I launch into creating original context, customized for her taste preferences (the witch gets a bloody boo boo, the witch has a baby, the witch gives the baby away because it cries too much). If I stop the story for a second, to catch my breath – or if the story gets too boring or goes off in the wrong direction – she stops walking and starts screaming.

“Ok ok ok, and then the witch gets a terrible rash on her nose!” I hasten to add.

My life in on the line here. There is no room for plot missteps.

Adding to the complexity of my storytelling prison is that Seconda is not my only audience member. Primo is there too and has narrative preferences and needs of his own.
Usually his tastes incline in a radically different direction – battling, spooky twists, surprise endings – and he wants his voice heard, too.

But if he so much as adds a sentence in, or lends an idea, Seconda is all over him like a feral monkey. That or worse, she stops walking again.

“Fine, then I’m not going to school.”

And I have to remind Primo that at this juncture, he can not have any needs of his own but after school it can be all about him and I’ll tell him ANOTHER story one where people use black magic and disapparate and shit that like. Because I am an unending font of original context.

So if you’re wondering why my blog’s been lacking luster or looking a little anemic remember that before 9am, I am forced to give away my BEST SHIT to the gremlins. It’s the price of getting them to school.

Drop-off debacle

The effort it took to bring my kid to school this morning was probably equivalent to the total effort I expended all day long in my former life. There was a time I had work all day, rehearsal after work, catering gigs after that, and bar-hopping followed by sex and straggling home at 4am and STILL all of that combined did not take more energy – physical and psychic – then bringing my kid to school this morning.

Primo not wanting to go to pre-school is not a new thing. He started at the school two mornings a week when he was 2, and basically since that first day, he has complained about going. Let me help you understand how nuts this is. His school is a dreamy, feel-good place, where teachers give kids room to explore and self-direct and allow them to pot out of anything they want and even bring their teddy bears to circle time. The teachers are nicer, much nicer than I am, more understanding, nurturing, kind, attentive. I want to go to this school, now, as a grown-up. And yet he has, to some degree, always objected when its time to leave the house.

I will spare you details of the early battles we had with separation anxiety -- how I sat in the corner of the classroom for MONTHS, typing on my laptop while Primo played blocks, just so he would feel comfortable transitioning. I won’t get into the days the teachers had to literally peel his fingers off of my body while he screamed and sobbed “MOMMY DON”T LEAVE ME!” with a wild look of panic in his eyes. They told me that he would pick up on my cues so I gave Oscar-winning performances every day at drop-off, smiling and saying, “Its OK. Mommy always comes back,” but once I had left the building I would sob ‘til the mascara ran down my cheeks. (OK, so I lied. I didn’t spare you.)

Since this is his third year, drop-off has improved tremendously but still every few months he’ll go through another “I AM NOT GOING TO SCHOOL” jag. And that’s precisely what I’m struggling through now. Yesterday the reason he couldn’t go was that it was very upsetting to him when the teachers rang the bell signaling the end of free choice time, and the start of circle.

“I am too busy to go to school,” Primo explained, kicking off the shoes I’d just put on his an unzipping the hoodie I’d just zipped up, “They ring the bell and I don’t have enough time to do my work which is very important.”

Today he saw me making his lunch and fixated on the fact that it was a “lunch day” as opposed to a half day which he does three times a week.

“I wish lunch days had never been INVENTED!!!” he screamed.

It took thirty minutes to walk two blocks to school. Once at school, it took another ten minutes to get him into the classroom, and the only way I was able to do it was suggesting that he make a book called “I HATE LUNCH DAYS!

“And the cover can be a boy eating lunch at school with a big X over it and the story can be all about a land where lunch days are against the law,” I went on, “And then other children who hate lunch days can read it and feel better.”

His amazing teacher said he’d be thrilled to help his out with that. Because his teachers are the nicest, most compassionate people in the world.

“OK,” said Primo suddenly and two seconds later, he was on the other side of the door.

And I bolted, and I do mean lightening BOLTED out of that school before he had second thoughts or the teachers had second thoughts about having him in the class. I bolted free, desperately needing to let out a wild, a very primal scream which of course I was not able to do because well, its somewhat frowned upon, especially when you are pushing a toddler in a stroller. Consider this post my primal scream.

If you have your own scream to unleash, do so in the comments section. It’s good karma to make a beleaguered mom feel better through the healing power of commiseration.