On the final day of summer, before school started, my daughter begged me into playing dolls with her.
“This one has ice powers, this one has dancing powers; this one has powers to make it spring, and this one has powers to make things sparkly,” she said.
How could I tell her no after that?
So we made bridges of ice and made things sparkly and flew dolls around on their unicorns for an hour or so. No one can say that kid doesn’t know how to use her imagination.
On the first day of school, she held back the tears as I walked her to her class, thank goodness. Leaving a crying child behind, and walking away, is the worst feeling ever. I think she was kind of distracted by our trek to her classroom carrying the heaviest backpack in the world.
I keep thinking about all the school supplies we bought, and I remember I was afraid the zipper was going to pop when we squeezed everything in it, but I still can’t imagine how folders, spirals, Clorox wipes, hand sanitizer, glue, paints and pencils added up to be so heavy!
I started off telling her she had to carry her own backpack, and I only intended to walk her to the drop off point, but I felt bad for her when she started huffing and puffing, so I walked with her all the way, and helped her carry it off and on. We literally had a backpack relay race to her classroom. She carried it for the last leg down the hallway, and by the time we walked in the classroom she was huffing and puffing again, and told her teacher, “It’s so heavy.” We both laughed a little, and I think it helped to get her mind off worrying about me leaving, she was so glad to deliver her backpack to the classroom at last.
When she got home, she proclaimed that it was “the best first day of school ever!”– while she jumped up and down on the couch. She even indulged me in telling me a little about her day at school, instead of telling me she doesn’t remember anything she did. But in a matter of minutes, she was off to her room to fly with the unicorns and make things sparkly again!