Kindergarten Jitters!

It was a typical evening, our daily parental duties had been evenly divided.  Ajee was putting the two older ones to bed, while I was dealing with Ali. After finishing my daily feeding and changing routine with Ali, I sat in the family room and let him play.  Meanwhile Phuppi was intensely watching an Indian soap. She quickly filled me in. A mystery about the murder of Suraj’s (protaganist) brother Mohit was about to be solved after a long 3 weeks. There were three members of the family who were pleading guilty, including Suraj himself. Yes indeed, you read that correctly, there was a murder and three different people were saying they DID commit the murder. Anyways we were about to find out Suraj’s story and why he was insisting he committed the murder when I hear Yusuf crying in our room..

Ughh!! What did Isa do now? As much as I wanted to find out who killed Mohit, it was probably more important for me to find out why my kid is crying. So I quickly run up to see whats going on. Yusuf was lying in our bed, wailing to his dad with tears and everything. For once, it wasn’t Isa, he just couldn’t fall asleep due to his anxiety about Kindergarten..again!!

Me: What’s wrong Yusuf?

Yusuf: I don’t want to go to Kindee - garden..boo hoo..

Me: Ok…why not? (This is a conversation we have had several times but seems to pop up every few weeks)

Yusuf: Because it’s hard, I won’t know how to do anything..sob sob..

Me: Ok Yusuf you know it’s not going to be that hard. I try to calm him down and wipe his tears as I carry him to his room on my hip.

Yusuf: Is it just going to be coloring type stuff or more stuff

Isa (while lying on his bed smirking): There will be some hard stuff like addition and subtraction and spelling.

Yusuf looks at me nervously

Me: Isa you are not helping (as usual) but its ok Yusuf, you already know how to add, and you can spell quite a bit.

Yusuf: I know but it’s hard!!sob sob..

Me: But Yusi.. it will get easier for you by then (Kindergarten is literally 9 months away!). Now try to stop thinking about it.

Yusuf: But I can’t stop thinking, it’s so hard to take something out of my head when it is already in it.

Me: Ok Yusi think about this, you thought Montessori was going to be hard, but it was easy and then you thought pre-K was going to be hard but it’s easy, same with Kindergarten you think it’s hard but it will be easy when you start it.

Yusuf's favorite thing to do. Writing his family's names on his whiteboard.

Isa: Yes Yusuf it’s actually not that hard, even First, second, third and fourth grade are easy.

This seemed to make sense to the little guy.

We then exchanged our goodnight kisses and the imperative I love yous..(It is very important for Yusuf to receive a good night kiss and an “I love you” from both parents, otherwise he will not sleep)

By now the crying had stopped, the stress of Kindergarten had been relieved (at least for this week) and he bravely told me “Amma aap jaasakte hain” or you can go now.

Wish it was that easy to relieve my stresses as well. Till then I’ll go grab the baby for bedtime and more importantly - find out who killed Mohit.