Kindy Debut

My ‘babies’ have had the kindy call-up. You should have seen the excitement when I hung up the phone and told them. Jayla especially was ecstatic. Jai’s enthusiasm, however, was short lived when older bro pointed out he was still in nappies and big kindy kids should wear undies.

There’s a point, I thought. What with shifting house and everything else that’s been going on, toilet training has been left on the back burner. Our nearly three-year-old is anti- potty, anti-toilet and anti-undies so when I tried to persuade him with: “Jai, would you like to go to kindy with Jayla in big-boy undies or stay at home with mummy in nappies?” you can guess what his answer was. Even when I threw in the fact his undies would have trucks on them it was met with a sing-song-like “No thanks”.

So we decided to let it be for now – afternoon kindy is only two hours after-all.

Monday morning finally came. Jayla woke and said “I go kindy today!” Jai woke and said “I have sore tummy.”

Could he be that clever? After clearing up the chunder hurled across the lounge I decided not even a Golden Globe nominee could pull that off.

Now I was faced with a dilemma. Obviously the sick one could not be going anywhere but I also wasn’t about to burst the bubble of one excited ‘kindy girl’ who’d been carting her packed bag around the house all day.

Then I remembered my wonderful mother-in-law. One phone call later and problem solved. She came and sat with Jai while I took Jayla, chanting ‘kindy’, up the road.

She walked in and made a beeline for the ‘babies’ and that is where she stayed for the first hour saying “My name’s Jayla Mae, what’s your name?” to anyone who came her way. At mat time she sat with baby tucked under one arm before spotting the play dough and deciding she’d rather make a gingerbread man. Off she trotted and was promptly called back. She then tolerated a story before trying her luck again. She was summoned to the mat once more before all the kids washed up and had afternoon tea. The first finished, she was straight back to the play dough table. I took leave then to go and pick her brother up from school and she didn’t even notice I’d gone.

The next day was her brother’s debut. Our youngest (by 30 seconds) is not what you’d call quiet – in fact his father received the comment “Who needs a foghorn?” by a passer by while at the supermarket with him last week. At mat time he was delighted when the teacher pulled out a family favourite book – We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.

Jai proceeded to predict every line of the story in his “foghorn” voice followed by a stomach-clutching hearty laugh while the rest of the kids sat silently open-mouthed. Every hearty laugh was punctuated by rolling round the floor in merriment.

I don’t enjoy being the centre of attention but my son made sure all eyes were our way. Judging by the looks on the teachers’ faces I gathered it was important not to laugh so instead sat there convulsing with ill-suppressed mirth.

The teacher read the last line but Jai knew there was another page without words to come. “One more page …” he shouted. It was a picture of the bear walking back to his cave. But Jai wasn’t done. Just to embarrass me one last time he yelled “Bye-bye stinky bear”.

By that point I was bright red with the effort of trying to contain myself.

They say you’re not supposed to label your kids as they will be brainwashed into believing they have to live up to that label but we’ve always quietly thought Jai was going to be the class clown. It seems our predictions were right.