Back to school!

It’s the last day of summer vacation for Abhay and tomorrow he is all set to begin his new academic year in Class II. While I am quite relieved that Abhay will get back to his school routine, I am also empathetic towards his “last day blues”, something we all went through and probably in many ways still go through! J I confess I am also a little uneasy about getting back to the grind!  In a way, summer vacation was a break from those mad mornings, from homework and project assignments, from coming up with innovative lunch box ideas, from the strict bedtime protocols and all those trappings of having school going kids! So it’s not just the kids, but an end of vacation for parents too! Though I must say that Abhay has been putting up a rather brave face about resuming school after two and half months of summer fun….but tomorrow, we’ll know if it’s for real! :-) 

In order to prep him up for the first day tomorrow, I read “"First day of school"” by Nandini Nayar, a story I remembered reading in the Quick read section of Young World last year. Vidya wasn’t really looking forward to her school reopening the next day and her amma sensing the same narrated a story about her own first day at school several  years back. Amma admitted to bunking the first day of school one year, much to Vidya’s delight making her wonder if she could do the same! However, little did she know that it wasn’t such a great idea as  amma’s second day of school was in fact her first day, and it was a pronounced one at that as by then her classmates at school already knew what was happening and who their seat partner is going to be or how their class teacher was! That’s when amma decided that she would never miss her first day of school ever! In Amma’s words “trying to escape from scary things never works as the scary things only bigger, stronger and scarier!” A simple yet powerful message not just for kids….don't you think? Anyway, wishing everyone a fruitful and fulfilling school year ahead!