“It’s your first day of school, Poppy,” her mom said.
“Yes, it is, Mommy!”
“What are you most excited about?”
“Recess!”
“What are you excited to learn?”
“Spanish.”
“What are you nervous about?”
“Nothing.”
“Are you excited for the bus?”
“Yes!”
That exchange between my wife and our kindergartner was captured on video as the sun rose on a coolish, almost-fall Minnesota morning — our daughter’s first day of elementary school.
All of those answers were true except the one about nerves.
Her excitement about the bus had us at the stop early. We waited alone for 10 minutes before three older kids came running up. One of them, a second-grader, told Poppy, “You can sit with me.”
Poppy promptly hid behind her mom, every inch of her little frame radiating nerves.
When the bus doors opened, Poppy started toward them. The second-grader, apparently undeterred, held out her hand.
Poppy hesitated, then grabbed it tight. I hope Poppy didn’t leave a mark.
The bus doors closed behind the nearly 10-pound baby we brought home from the hospital more than five years ago. Apparently, she is a kindergartner now.
I spent much of that morning looking backward.
Our trip to school looked much different last year. I wrote about riding our bikes to preschool together — the culmination of her learning to pedal on her own. She made it all the way to the learning center.
That wasn’t an option this year. Her elementary school is too far away and starts too early for us to ride there together. The bus stop, however, is only three blocks from home.
I was surprised by how little I cried. Maybe dropping her at the preschool door was more emotionally gut-wrenching than sending her away on a bus. Maybe we had been preparing for this day for an entire year.
Or maybe, just maybe, getting up before sunrise made me too tired to care.
Poppy, meanwhile, wasn’t looking backward.
She had walked to the stop with her mom on the first morning but promised to ride with me the next day. She kept that promise. On the second morning, she rode there with her brother and me.
She is pedaling so fast now that perhaps riding all the way to school could become an option — provided there are no crashes, stalls or meltdowns.
Once we reached the stop that second morning, she asked the second-grader to sit with her again. When the bus doors opened, she put on the same blinders she had worn when the preschool classroom doors opened and didn’t even acknowledge us.
That was the second morning. The first sign that she was already moving forward had come the afternoon before.
On that first afternoon, I waited for the same bus to bring her home.
I expected two things: a one-word review of “Good” and a child exhausted enough to nap after such a big day, especially after having Spanish thrown at her all day.
I was wrong on both counts.
Poppy came home in a remarkably good mood and gave me a few answers. She said she hadn’t played with anyone yet and had one class in English. It wasn’t a detailed report, but it was more than “Good.”
Poppy also came home with more Spanish than she had left with.
She could already count to 10 in Spanish, but after only one day, she sounded noticeably better doing it. She was in such a good mood that she even started singing in Spanish.
That surprised me. Another parent with older children at the school had told me he rarely heard them speak Spanish at home, even though they were nearly fluent.
The song was set to the tune of “Frère Jacques”:
“Buenos días, buenos días.”
“¿Cómo está? ¿Cómo está?”
“Is that the end of the song, Poppy?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
That seemed like a lot of setup without any resolution, so I looked up the rest. If you do the same, it will be stuck in your head, too:
“Muy bien, gracias. Muy bien, gracias.”
“¿Y usted? ¿Y usted?”