Charlotte Looks Forward to School

by Beverly Beckham
Oct. 18, 2009

Editor’s Note: Beverly Beckham is an award-winning columnist who writes for The Boston Globe. She has five grandchildren.

We would like to know what you thing. We would love to hear stories of you and your grandchildren. dan@youngchronicle.com

 

Charlotte has been looking forward to going to school for months. “I going to Castle School,” she has said all summer long. Her brother, Adam, and cousin, Lucy, were starting kindergarten. Her friend, Amy, was entering first grade. And though Charlotte is only 2, she insisted that she was going to school, too. All summer, every time we passed the Castle School, Charlotte would point and yell and smile.

So her mother, my daughter, signed her up for Castle School — two hours, two mornings a week. And when it was time for back-to-school shopping with Adam, she took Charlotte along and bought her new clothes, which Charlotte hung in the closet next to her brother’s. Charlotte also got a purple backpack, and new shoes — purple ones — which she strapped on in the shoe store (thank you, Velcro), pirouetted in a few times, and tested for their climbing ability.

A few weeks ago, on Adam’s first day of school, Charlotte dressed in one of her new outfits and stood beside him as he posed for pictures. “I going to school, too,” she said again and again, smiling for every picture.

A few mornings later her mother took her to the Castle School for a trial run. Charlotte met her teacher, saw her classroom, played with some toys, and then went home. Charlotte, it seemed, was good to go.

Finally, the big day dawned. This wasn’t a dress rehearsal anymore. Her big brother wasn’t standing beside her as she posed for pictures. Charlotte wasn’t just pretending to go to school. This was the real thing.

There was Charlotte at the Castle School, which is really a Unitarian church but the steeple has Charlotte fooled, dressed in a new pink and purple outfit, wearing her purple shoes, her backpack stuffed with pencils and snacks.

And there were her mother and father hugging her and kissing her and saying good-bye and I was hugging and kissing her, too. And there was Charlotte, whose litany, for weeks, for months has been “I going to Castle School! I going to Castle School!” suddenly … not happy at all. Suddenly, serious. Suddenly, mute! She said nothing. Not a word. Not a sigh. Not a sniffle. Not a sound.

Click went the cameras and Charlotte just stared. Whoosh went the videos and Charlotte just stood. “Charlotte!” somebody yelled and Charlotte didn’t even turn to look.

This little spitfire who just a few weeks ago walked fully dressed into a swimming pool, having announced “I swim,” as she jumped in, who sunk to the bottom then sputtered up, who was pulled out by her mother and a stranger and an ashen lifeguard, who on dry ground again didn’t wail or moan or even cough, who said only, “I need towel!” and then announced, “I swim ‘gin,” was this day in the parking lot of her beloved Castle School suddenly just a scared little 2-year-old.

How long did the good-bye process take? Twenty-six pictures? A few minutes of tape? A half-dozen hugs and kisses? A walk across a small parking lot? A short wait in line to file in? She filed in. And she never looked back.

“Bye, Charlotte! Bye! See you later. I love you,” we all yelled.

Charlotte didn’t turn. She didn’t react. She said nothing.

The big yellow door slammed closed and we left.

Two hours later, when her mother picked her up, she was back to her old chatterbox, why-walk-when-you-can -run, why-run-when-you-can-climb, fearless, crazy self. “Did you like school, Charlotte?”

She nodded. She skipped to the car. “I like Castle School. I play with crayons. I sing songs. I eat Cheez-Its.”

I look at the pictures I took just a few hours before. Charlotte’s first day of school. It’s a study in contrasts.

Children change even as you watch. Tentative one minute, tenacious the next. They’re 2 and then they’re 22, which is really why we watch, why we smile, why we take pictures and why we write.

 

 

Source: Grandparents