Frak 'U'

We are having a hard morning.

Ayla is obsessing over her letter.

Preschool starts with circle time. You sit on your letter on the circle rug. The first day Ayla sat on the letter 'A' and was pleased as pink punch.

But Ayla did not get assigned the letter 'A'. Pert, upright, charming little 'A'. Ayla was assigned the undulous,unctuous, sinking depths of 'U'. My first born likes things to be neat and orderly. She decides, with her own reason, how things should go, and she has a very difficult time if life does not unroll the way she imagined it would and should. Ayla starts with 'A', she sat on 'A' first, 'A' should have been her letter.

"How was school?" I ask Ayla.

"I sat on the 'A' and then I got up to use the bathroom and a girl sat on my 'A' and the teacher told her to move but she wouldn't move."

or,

"Ayla, at school today you will play outside, you'll play in the house, you'll sing a song, maybe you'll draw a picture. . . "

"But will I have to have circle time?"

"Yes."

Silence. Folded arms. Cross face. "I HATE circle time. I don't want to go to school!"

All of this stress (it is stressful for a child like Ayla for there not to be order where she believes it should be. I feel stressed when there's no order in my life, and I'm not four) and disappointment culminated in an Ayla who, this morning, asked me nicely if she could stay home, folded her arms and demanded to stay home, shouted at me that she HATES school, and finally, in the hallway, began crying and begging me please to take her home, she did not want to go to school, she wanted to play with me and Indy.

She was out of school on Tuesday with a bit of a cold. Otherwise, I'm telling you: I would have whisked her out of there.

Ayla was coaxed, crying, to the inferior 'U' on the circle mat. Indy was pulled out of the classroom, crying and kicking (her usual leaving Ayla routine). I stood in the doorway hiding from Ayla but watching her sad little face with tears rolling down.

Miss Kim persuaded me to leave but I wanted to punch her in her smiling face. The umbilical cord thirsted for her blood. It will not abide the sound of tears.

Then Indy and I walked to Starbucks and walked home. We do this a lot in the mornings, but this is the first time we had ever done it without Ayla. Only Indy skipping along beside me. No Ayla running a block and then getting tired and climbing gangly-limbed into the stroller.

I missed her.

It made me very sad. And so I cried.