Scared of School

Drop-off is tricky now that Clara and Winton are both at the same school. 

C's new class is usually outside playing when we arrive, which means a playground good-bye (always more prone to emotional malfunctions: somehow the open space opens up all kinds of possibilities for little girl distress).

Once she is Ok, W and I head inside to take C's bag to her classroom on the 4th floor.  W loves this part as C's new class features a big white rabbit that actually LIKES to be petted by children (though I swear she tried to pee on me).

Then W and I take the elevator to the ground floor and start his drop-off.  He seems mostly over his distress, but still clings a bit.  Today he needed a teacher to hold him when I left.  She said, unintentionally unhelpfully, "Hey Winton!  I'll hold you up to the window to wave good-bye to your Mom, OK?"

Problem: window faces into playground.  To wave good-bye to W meant I had leave via the playground, thereby re-encountering C.

That may have been just as well this morning as Clara seems to have realized (on her 3rd day in her new class) that she doesn't get to play with her friends from her old class anymore.  She was crying when I emerged on the playground. 

So, Winton got a quick, falsely exuberant goodbye wave from me with my most furrowed and anxious facial expression (how much of that do my sunglasses hide??). . . and got to see that I was carrying a bawling Clara.

Winton is getting into the new routine, but is still scared of school.  Clara is just realizing she's going to have to get to know a bunch of new girls because Henry sometimes wants to run with the feral pack of little boys: she's scared of school.  I still have a book to finish (it's shockingly plausible that I will eventually finish, actually), but the halls here are slowly filling with people, and irksome meetings are starting to pepper my schedule: I am scared of school too.