Someday, Helen will beg me to give her this advice

On Friday, Helen will finally get to go to school. She's been looking forward to this day ever since she first dropped Connor off on the playground last year. She believes she ought to be in Connor's class. Unfortunately for her, Connor's class is for children at least age 4.5.

Connor has explained to Helen over and over that parent-child class at school is fun! He talks about his teacher, Mrs. T., and Helen has seen the classroom from when she's walked by it to get to Connor's classroom. She adores it. Selfishly, I have so many fond memories of that class from when Connor was in it and Helen had just been born that I can't wait to get back in it myself.

But the problem for Helen? She knows that someone has to be the parent in her parent-child pair, and she'd rather fly solo.

At the beginning of the summer, she announced often to me that she didn't need me to go to school with her. She could go by herself. Finally, I told her it was a parent-child class and unless she had a parent, she couldn't get in. This sufficed for a while.

Today, she announced again that she did NOT need me to go to school with her. I told her that indeed, she did. She argued a bit and finally I said this.

"Helen, we will go to class together on Friday. You don't have to walk in at the same time I do, and you can just pretend I'm not there the whole time. You can sit by whomever you want, and play with whatever you want."

She nodded her agreement with this plan and excitedly said "Yes!".

We'll see what her tune is on Friday, but I'm expecting a very different experience with her than I had with Connor. When Connor entered the class, he had just turned 2, and he was very much still attached to me. He loved being right by my side, and it took a while for him to be comfortable playing very far from me.

Elaine