Chloe attended her first day of JK yesterday and it did not disappoint.
She was a little on edge when the bus came and went and she wasn’t on it, staggering the kids not just by day and week but also time of day so no two JK’ers are ever in the school at the exact same time. I guess they have to let the school build up an immunity toward the three year old giants. I can’t say I blame them. Their antics and post peanut butter washings are sketchy at best.
Chloe asked for a back-pack but settled on one of those purses with a horse on the front that you colour in with markers. Someone obviously became bored after carefully colouring in just the tail with a rainbow of colours so the rest remains black outlines with a lot of white and then BAM! awesome tail.
We placed several pens in the horse outline bag despite me knowing pens don’t enter the picture until around grade six, her brand new Hello Kitty running shoes, a bag with a spare set of clothes for “spills” and then horse-bag overfloweth so Smurfette lunch bag packed with triangle Triscuits (not the square ones! the square ones are too thick!) a banilla yogurt and carrots and hummus.
I would later learn the hummus actually got stuck on the lid of the container. I suspect this might have been the impetus for a school-wide moment of silence.
Chloe said something to me in the van as we began to slowly unbuckle after arriving at the school (25 minutes early).
“Don’t worry Mom, I’m safe.”
What a strange thing to have said as I haven’t even shown her my tattoo—Safety First! And yet, it really stuck with me the entire time she was there. Isn’t that really what we care most about? That our kids are left with trustworthy people who in the end can breathe through life’s imperfect hummus-on-the-lid moments and keep them all safe? I know I left her in capable hands.
I also loved the send-off where she was greeted at the door with two SK helpers who she claims are brother and sister but it turns out they are just similar in height kids in her class. They handed her a construction paper heart which opened to yet more heart stickers with Chloe’s name on it.
While I questioned the early push for Valentine’s Day it was all Chloe needed to blow past me and rush into the room like she was the first to arrive at a chocolate egg hunt and didn’t quite know where to look first.
As I cartwheeled down the hall but then got reprimanded because of the whole cartwheel ban, I smiled empathetically at parents whose legs were being devoured by sobbing, screaming children (surely not JK’ers as they aren’t legally allowed to be there on Chloe’s day) and as I walked to my van and planned a beautiful morning walk I heard a tiny voice say, “Don’t worry Mom, I’m safe.”
Life is good.
