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Susie at School

 My daughter is as tightly wound as I am, so there are some aspects of back-to-school month that should not surprise me.


Sometimes, awaiting the bus, Susie bursts into tears; I think this is because the effort of the PK day seems overwhelming. I encourage her to slack off. "Just give 70 percent today," I ask. "No one will notice."

The dumbest thing I did was to take her to a cafe after school one afternoon; I should have anticipated that, after all that social school time, she would want to lounge on the sofa with lightly plotted TV options. This is what I myself would want (and, in fact, the cafe led to an ear-splitting tantrum). In desperation, at the table, I made a threat: "Calm down, or we will leave right now." And of course Susie said, "Great. Let's leave right now." Things did not improve.

I notice that Susie's accounts of her day tend to focus on lunch--and this, too, makes sense to me. Many of the daylight hours seem to be a distraction from the main affair: lunch. Is this not correct?

Susie interrupts my thoughts. She is selecting books she thinks I might like -- for example, an Elena Ferrante title, because the cover is blue, and blue is "Papa's favorite." She is pleased with herself; she makes her delivery. She wanders away.
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