First day no go.

The twins were supposed to start school today. I spent the weekend in an anxious flurry, about whether I should actually send them, them being so young, second guessing our decision to do so coupled with trying to get their things organised for them to go. This meant labelling their bottles, getting name tags done for their school bags, which incidentally look larger than they are.

It all came to naught though because last night, Jordan's drippy nose developed into a full blown congested, wheezing cold which evolved into a fever, a phlegmy cough and a drippy nose that could rival a crack user. And because Evan shares the same room with her and occasionally puts things like Baby J's pacifier into his mouth just to get a rise out of her, he has a drippy nose too. I just hope his won't develop into a full blown thing like hers.

It's ironic really. We decided to send them to playgroup so that they have time to build up their immunity whilst I was on leave. Once again, the irony doesn't escape me. Send them to school now that I'm on leave? That must be a mistake because it does not make sense. But this is how I saw it. When I was at work, I dreaded (over the regular amount of dread a mother feels about her child falling sick) the kids falling ill because it meant total and utter exhaustion for me. While I was at work, I subsisted on 4 hours of sleep on a good night and that had to get me through being on my feet, being intellectually coherent and alert enough to make sense and intimidate a whole bunch of 18 year olds into thinking that they knew nothing compared to me and therefore had a lot of catching up to do in terms of smarts. When the twins got sick, that 4 hours whittled into 2 hours if I was lucky and I could only do that much, running on fumes. That was when I would catch myself falling asleep in mid-sentence, blanking out, unsure of what I had just said or fall asleep walking and catch myself just before I was about to trip and take a tumble down the stairs. And all this while the twins existed in a bubble called home.

Everyone warned of how when the kids first started school, they would fall sick a lot as their -until that point kept in a glass jar -immune systems got a load of the germ and toxic loaded air around us. And I would marvel at how 4 hours of sleep could be luxurious. I would also be amazed at the number of germs out there that would make them sick and render them needing Mommy in the middle of the night. I couldn't imagine doing that on a more regular basis than I did last year and work at the same time. So, how to get round it? Send them to playschool at a time when I didn't have to be answerable to anyone else except my husband and my kids, in theory because I'm still answerable to alot of people I don't want to be answerable to, but that's beside the point.

So, now that they've turned 18 months, although I admit that's still abit young, and I'm on leave, it feels like the best time. But part of me was loath to let them go because sending them meant couple of hours in the morning, nap when they got home and that would be a better part of the day gone and when would they play? Although Packrat pointed out, quite rightly that it was PLAYschool where they would PLAY with toys they didn't have at home and make a mess of things that we didn't have to clean up.

That's the other thing. We've been asked about the type of school we're sending them to. When we started hunting for schools, we had a certain criteria we'd check off. The programme needed to provide the children fun experiences that were varied. I'm not sending them to school to do things I could do with them easily. The school needed to take creativity seriously. Once again, oxymoron, but true. I didn't want somewhere that paid lip service to creativity and spent all its times drilling the kids on the alphabet and their multiplication tables or something. For me, if possible, I didn't want to put them some place they needed uniforms since they'd be spending a large part of their lives in uniform and my theory is why start them doing something now that they'll have no choice but to spend the rest of their young lives doing. Once again, going back to the varied experience thing.

The easiest route and the one that seems to attract the most number of parents is the one that promises geniuses out of their kids even if their kids are 18 months old. That fortunately for my kids, and unfortunately for the playschools, is not on my check list. In fact, it's on my - stay away from- list. Unfortunately, these are the cheaper playschools, the more affordable ones, the ones that have the most government funding or whatever. I guess, if you tow the party line, it does become much cheaper. Be the renegade and you and those who want to go that way, have to pay a little bit more.

Now, there's irony for you or not.


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