Happy Muslim Mama: Little Man’s First Day at School.

After a long wait, we finally got round to Little Man’s first day at nursery yesterday, and what a pleasure (most of it was). He spent the whole day asking if it was time to go yet (he was given a place in the afternoon nursery) and I spent the whole day black-mailing him: “If you want to go school, you have to finish your food”, “If you want to go school you have to pick up your toys”.He was given the same nursery class as Little Lady used to attend, which was nice bit of continuity. I introduced us all to his teacher thinking at least this will prove he has a mother – she probably won’t be seeing me for the rest of the year. I was worried he would be shy or withdrawn, which he seemed at first. He spent the first 10 minutes standing with his mouth open looking incredibly gormless, it didn’t help that the baby accidentally poked him that morning in the mouth and both his lips were swollen with a bloodspot on the bottom one. It wasn’t long though before he found his feet and ran off with all of the other boys straight into the play-house with all of the play-dough and stayed there for the hour. The teacher used a tambourine to call the children to the carpet and Little Man promptly declared he wanted the tambourine, that there was one in his sister’s class and that he liked play-dough. After this there was no stopping him, he chatted away to the teacher until it was time for us to go (only an hour for the first day) and the other children headed off to the library. At this point he threw a fit and refused to come home. He cried all the way home, saying we could not make him come home tomorrow and fell asleep from exhaustion as soon as he sat down.Oddly enough, along with two school bags (one for PE kit, one for a change of clothes), I have to supply welly-boots and a rain coat for him so that he can play out even if it is wet – I am not very keen on this, but it seems all the kids have to do this (I saw two children doing PE in their summer shorts yesterday and the cold is almost unbearable here right now).

Today we are supposed to drop him off for an hour unaccompanied, but I think we will be leaving him for the afternoon as he is so keen mash’Allah, can’t wait till he gets home to tell me all about it.