A Playschool Dilemma
A Sunday Morning (which was not a late-morning that day!!)
I had my cellphone in my hand dialing my mother’s number.
Tring…tring…tring…tring…
C’mon Mom, pick up the telephone!!
Ahh.. finally!
“Hello, Mom, it’s me. Ya, weekend! Nothing special…..”. I wanted to wind up all the lady talks (which we often involve into) sooner.
“Mom, tell me one thing, which was my first class to start with my schooling?”
“It was LKG Gitu. Don’t you remember Greta Teacher & Claudia Teacher?”…she wished to continue.
“Wait, wait…I do remember all of them and also the Cherry tree in the courtyard…but tell me my age when I started with LKG?”, my ears elongated…
“Mmmm, you were 3 and a half…”
I got busy calculating and she continued in my silence.
“Yes! Gitu, I still remember, your first day to school. It was heartbreaking for me! Tears rolling all over your cheeks and breaking my heart into pieces….”
“____________”
“Hello, you there? What happened?”, her voice was still wet.
“Yes, Mom. Nah…..it’s all good! I will call you back in the evening”….I hanged over the phone without being the usual ‘daughter’ to my Mom!!
Suddenly the smell of burning milk got infused into my nostrils. Oh fish!! What is all this happening today? Dropping the plan of sipping a hot coffee, I banged myself into the bean bag with my chain of thoughts….
He was just 5 months old (or young??) when I placed him in his cradle without returning back for 9 hours from my office.
He was 8 months old when I insisted his Doctor that I would start weaning since waking up was getting tougher at lousy-drowsy nights.
He was a year old when his granny left for our hometown and we rushed to the doors of various creches to check for vacancy & suitability to our needs.
Few weeks of efforts and he adjusted himself with his new maid and began jumping on her shoulders!
A relief it was!
….and one fine day a road http://premier-pharmacy.com hoarding grabbed my attention – “Enroll you kid with XYZ Pre school- a first step towards education and we will make sure they become the shining stars of the future!!”…sounds truly mesmerizing! I checked with the pre-school for the eligibility. 1.8 years for the Playschool!!
Play school -> Nursery -> Jr. KG -> Sr. KG.. A new preschool formula!! I know, the world is moving at a faster speed… we wish to put the best neurons at work, we wish to conquer the world, we wish to sharpen the stone into a shining diamond.. I know – we wish!! Many other justifications follow- getting to spend time with similar age group, getting acquainted with the outside world, getting vivacious with each new experience, getting independent and so on!
However, 1.8 years? Is this the age when I should squeeze that soft bundle into the uniform? Is this the age when I should be depriving him of his ‘age-free’ friendship and force him to join his own age group? Is this the age when I should let him eating from his ‘cold’ snack box rather than a fresh, warm meal? Many more questions followed…. with a firm answer from a ‘Mother’ in me – a ‘No’!!
The decision was made to let my little one live one more bonus year of an ‘unstructured & crooked’ life!!
I called Mom in the evening – “Hey Mom, ya, sudden plans as usual! We are partying at MacD with an Oreo Milkshake and some Fries. Reason? Found a solution for my Play school dilemma!!”
Gita Gosavi is a Networking Engineer in R&D Organization. Cooking & communicating being her hard core hobbies, she has been able to get hold of the former since the birth of her son and this article would possibly be her first step towards the latter one!!