First day of school with little kids:
*2 weeks before the big event I've bought everything: from exercise books, through geometry sets, all the way to the mythical “modelling-clay board” and “oilcloth”, which will never be used but MUST be presented (Some other time I'll tell you about my ordeals finding an oilcloth, I don't want to waffle on here. But in short – thank goodness my mother-in-law saved me by cutting me a bit of the oilcloth off the table at the Yotovs' house in the village of Brest).
*1 week before that, in the class Viber group, the Leader-Mum has handed out tasks for 15th September to the rest of us ordinary mums. A ritual loaf, honey, red threads with a gold coin, geraniums, treats, soft drinks – still and preservative-free, etc. I've drawn a good lot – the geraniums. There are loads of geraniums outside our block of flats. I strip them bare and make one huge bouquet, tying it with a red ribbon. In the other child's class I'm not so lucky – there I've been landed with “home-made treats”. I want to buy something ready-made from “100 grama sladki”, but the child throws a fit, saying it's important that I bake the treats myself. Otherwise “there'd be no point” (quote).
*On the 14th I spend the whole day going round for the nicest bouquets. I'm proud that I remember to get some not just for the teachers but also for the class assistants and for the ladies from the after-school club. They come out a bit pricey, but – hey, it's worth it – they look after the kids all year. And I'll impress them – I bet no other mum has thought of getting bouquets for all 3 kinds of teacher.
*On the night of the 14th to the 15th I don't sleep at all. Because after baking the home-made treats, I remember that I have to wrap them individually, according to the requirements of RIOKOZ. I wrap my ugly, wonky, overbaked biscuits in ugly wrappers I've cut wonkily myself. I tie them with some ribbons left over from Christmas. I've got about an hour left till morning. As a student I worked out that sleeping for 2 hours is nastier than not sleeping at all. So I fill the time until dawn sticking on and writing labels.
*On the morning of the 15th we set off, pressed and solemn, our arms full of biscuits, geraniums, bouquets etc., towards the school. I park half a km away, because there's no free space any closer. In the schoolyard we listen to speeches by the headmistress, the district mayor, the deputy Italian ambassador and a bunch of other speakers. I relieve the devastating boredom that has taken hold of me by taking a photo of me and the kids with the bouquets and posting it on Facebook. Let everyone know I'm a Heroine Mother. For the next hour, until all the speeches are over under the blazing sun, the heroine mother's only entertainment is refreshing her page to watch the number of likes grow on her 15th-of-September photo on Facebook.
* Time to go into the classroom. Now I'll shine, I think to myself, with my bouquets and my geraniums. It turns out that every single mum, just like me, has thought of getting bouquets for the teacher, the class assistant and the lady from the after-school club. On the other hand, I'm one of the few mums who DIDN'T THINK of also getting bouquets for the school doctor, the nurse and – oh, the shame – the headmistress. There's a slight blunder with the geraniums as well, since they were supposed to be in little posies, one for each child, and I'd gone and made one big one for everybody. In the other child's class things go better – I manage to hide my ugly home-made biscuits among the piles of treats generously supplied by the other mums.
*These mums, though, can do everything and know everything. With all those organisational activities they surely have no time left to look after their appearance, I reassure myself. You can't have it both ways. A quick glance at the mums establishes that 60% of them look better than me. I give up. I take the two folders of documents that have to be handed back filled in the next day – medical records, cards for the child's route back home, declarations that the child will go home with his big brother etc.), take the kids home and beat a retreat to the office. There I feel more in my element.
*The night of the 15th to the 16th of September, again, no sleep. Until 12 I'm filling in declarations. After that, in one of the second-grader's folders, I find an instruction whose execution fills the rest of my night. I urgently have to take an exercise book with wide lines and, by hand, with a pencil and a ruler, convert it with dotted lines into an exercise book with “narrow-and-wide” lines. Only the first 10 or so pages, mind you. So that the second-grader can make a smooth transition from “narrow-and-wide” to “wide” lines without getting stressed. By about 5 in the morning I'm done with that too. Until 7 I'm sticking on and writing the other pupil's labels.
First day of school with grown-up kids:
A day like any other! The day of a free, well-rested woman!
P.S. At the end of the school year that began with the first day of school with little kids, I find that very exercise book I spent all night dotting with a pencil and a ruler. It's untouched.
