The first day of school

March, 1^st, 2020

Today is the first day of school! (1) My kids are excited, especially Dana, who is almost 7 years old and is starting her second grade. She already knows her classmates and has spent the last week of her summer holidays deciding on whether she should sit next to Casey or next to Luke. Last night, she helped me set the school uniform and I prepared her a delicious lunchbox: a meatball sub, a big, whole apple, and just a bottle of water, as they give her juice at school. My youngest is 3 years old, and though Harry is not as aware as his sister of the huge day he has ahead, we have explained to him that he’s going to begin kindergarten; he’s going to have a new teacher and little friends he will get to play with every day.

I set my alarm clock at 7 AM. By then, my husband has already prepared some coffee and toasts. While the milk warms up in the microwave, I wake my children and they spring from their beds. “Yeah, today’s the first day of school!” shouts Dana. I help Harry put on his clothes; she dresses by herself. After a quick yet nutritious breakfast, I comb her hair in two ponytails, I tie the shoelaces of Harry’s sneakers, they pick up their bags and we rush to school!

Many parents and grandparents crowd the school gate: everyone wants to get a picture of their child with a spotless uniform and a happy face before homework, sitting straight, and short break-times wear the enthusiasm out of them. I push a little bit to get a good close-up of my daughter, and after she waves good-bye and gives a big hug to her new teacher, it’s time to take little Harry to kinder. I walk into the small classroom along with other parents, and we all remain there until the teacher is confident that the children are not going to cry. As I walk away, I see Harry puts a finger in his nose and I resist the urge to correct him in public: after all, he’s already playing happily with wooden blocks and he has forgotten all about me.

I can’t help but feeling a little anxious: will my girl do well in math? What if my little boy misses me and starts to cry? Wouldn’t it be terrible if adaptation to kinder took him longer than a week? I try to push aside these dreadful thoughts. Judging from this auspicious beginning, it seems we are heading towards a good school year!

March, 1^st, 2021

Today is the first day of school. (2) For my almost eight-year-old daughter, it seems so weird going back, after almost a year in front of the screen, seeing teachers and classmates only in Zoom meetings, and getting email responses instead of hugs, colorful stickers, or little hearts for homework well done. My four-year-old doesn’t understand a bit. What is a kinder? He cannot remember that colorful building which he only attended a couple of weeks, a year ago, before the lockdown. He doesn’t get why he can’t remain at home with mom and dad. Harry grabs my leg and says “mommy, I don’t want to leave you!” It’s almost no use explaining to him we are no longer allowed to do home-office every day, and that he needs to get in touch with his peers once and for all. I assure him it’s just for some hours, and then I am going to pick him up. I wish I could promise him he will have a great time, but with schools opening up their gates with so many protocols and limitations, the year ahead is just one big question mark for all of us.

Dana is sad because she already knows she is not in the same “bubble” that her best friends. Her pal Casey is no longer attending the same school: her parents lost their jobs and had to move to another city. And we haven’t seen Luke in a year: his dad has a heart condition, and thus the boy hasn’t gone to the park or done any activity for fear of contagion. I try to comfort my daughter, she will still get to be around children her age and spend some time in the classroom instead of in front of the computer. “Can I take my Barbie to school?” she asks, as I put inside her bag the books, the notebook, a bottle of gel hand sanitizer, paper tissues, and the pencil case. “No, sweetheart, no toys are allowed this year”. She looks disappointed: she spent half the afternoon sewing a little mask for her doll.

Dad and I have told the children that their teachers are going to be great, but we haven’t met them yet: no parent-teacher meetings have been scheduled so far. All I know is that the 3^rd-grade teacher is someone new: Mr. Florio, the previous teacher, is at home, still recovering from pneumonia after he caught the virus. “Such a young man”, my neighbor told me, “I wonder why it hit him that hard!” I don’t know what to say: my sister got the virus last September and it went away like a common cold, but a friend of mine almost died, and she isn’t forty yet.

Last night, I set up the school uniform, which is spotless because it has been barely worn, but looks small for my big girl. I prepared a lunchbox too, although she is not allowed to eat it at school: I have to pick her up at noon and go to have lunch at the nearest park, on a bench. There are no outdoor food courts in our neighborhood. Restaurants and fast-food chains are yet to open. And schools may be active, but children aren’t allowed to eat anything in them. I put an apple but decide it will be better to cut it in slices. “But mom! It will get all brown, yuk!” I also have to pack a juice box for her, as drinking fountains have been forbidden. I also set two masks for each child: one that they should wear the entire morning at school, and a spare one just in case.

I set my alarm clock at 6:15 AM. My husband is doing home-office for all week since there was a confirmed case among his coworkers. Oh my God, there is so much to do… Although I have already set the clothes, which we wash every time we go outside, the children are no longer used to getting up this early. It takes me forever to get them out of bed and into their school uniforms. We have a big breakfast –I shouldn’t eat so much, those long months indoors have left me with extra weight. I take my anxiety medication together with a glass of water. My daughter is complaining about the pink mask she can’t find. “Sorry, honey, it’s not dry yet!” I had to wash it last night. As for my little boy, we have been teaching him how to put on and take off the mask by himself, but he is still perfecting the skill. I tell the children to go brush their teeth while I double-check my bag: extra mask, hand sanitizer, a bottle of water, an extra pair of shoes to change mine when I walk into the office (the latest request from the management), more anxiety pills because I have such a big day ahead…

I comb Dana’s hair, which takes forever: it has never been this long, but I’m terrible at cutting it and I won’t risk going to the children’s hair salon if I can avoid it. And my little boy looks like a young Beatle. They put on their bags, and I ask them for the tenth time to wash their hands, to avoid physical contact with their classmates, to follow the directions, and to respect the protocol. “Don’t share your school objects with other children”, I say. “But mom, wasn’t sharing supposed to be good?” asks Dana. “I know, sweetheart”, I smile at her, but I frown when I picture a dozen little dirty hands getting inside her brand new pencil case.

We arrive early to school: children are supposed to enter in different timetables according to their grades. I can no longer walk my daughter to the door, as parents shouldn’t spend more than the strictly necessary time in front of the school. She can barely distinguish her classmates behind the masks so she looks lost, and oh so small… There are other parents around, but I don’t see many cameras. Nor grandparents. Until the vaccine is available for all that age group, we won’t be counting much on them. We want to keep them safe. My daughter waits in line until a janitor, wearing a face shield that makes him look like an astronaut, checks the temperature of every child, and, only after applying more hand sanitizer, allows them to enter one by one into the building. My daughter waves goodbye. I can’t see whether she’s smiling or not, but her eyes look sad.

And now I have to wait for at least another 25 minutes before it’s time to take Harry to kindergarten. I can no longer go inside with him, and of course, he cries when I tell him he should go inside to meet his new teacher. He doesn’t remember his friends: he has only seen them a few times in the playground. Nobody hugs him; the principal does not even tap his head. Physical contact should be completely avoided among children and school staff, it doesn’t matter if it’s a 4-year-old being apart from his mother for the first time in almost a year, or a 10-year-old who just bumped his head into a locker and is bleeding. Everyone should stay at least 3 feet apart from one another.

By the time Harry finally calms down, I rush to the bus stop. I know I’m already late for work, but I couldn’t imagine it would take me another half an hour for a bus driver to let me get in: there’s a limited sitting capacity and it is the rush hour by now. I go inside the office, I change my face mask and my shoes, sanitize my hands, and have my temperature check. I finally sit in front of my desk and I’m about to turn my computer on when my cell phone rings.

It’s my husband. He tells me he’s going to pick up Dana because one of her classmates threw up and has a little fever, so the school is closing the whole grade preventively and sending everybody home. She won’t be back, in the best possible scenario, for the next two days, and if the other girl happens to test positive, Dana should be locked inside for the following two weeks.

I don’t know what kind of year we have ahead. I don’t know what kind of day it’s going to be. And still, somehow, I’m ok. Perhaps it’s the medication, but I prefer to think that all of this we have been through has raised my tolerance threshold to uncertainty.

Time will tell.

(1)   In Argentina, where I’m from, school years begin in March (when the summer is ending) and finish early in December, when the days are already scorching hot. Last year, on March 16^th all schools were closed because of the Covid-19 pandemic, and classes went full-time remote for the rest of the year.

(2) In March 2021, schools in Argentina reopened following strict protocols.