Last Tuesday was the first day of school for Niuniu and Niumei.
I get excited every time school starts. But this time the reason was different:
I wanted to know everything about her new school even more than Niuniu did.
It’s like ordering an absurdly expensive designer bag that everyone raves about, sight unseen — then waiting for the delivery, nervous and thrilled at once.
Savvy luxury shopper or total sucker? We’d find out at the unboxing.
Tuesday morning a little after six, Niu-ba dragged himself out of bed and croaked at half-dead me: go back to sleep, I’m driving anyway.
The new school starts at 8, and it’s a 45-minute drive from home. Niu-ba can continue on to work from there, so the drop-off duty — he carried it all.
We used to sleep until 8 and step out the door straight onto the school bus. Those good days are gone forever.
As if I could sleep. I staggered up, half-closed eyes, combed out Niuniu’s eternally tangled hair, checked her face and clothes for crumbs, straightened her collar and cuffs, and hoisted her completely empty backpack onto her shoulders.
Why was the backpack empty? Because there was truly nothing to carry.
Today wasn’t even a real school day. Per the school, this was “returning day” — let the students get familiar with the place, warm up a little. Wednesday was the official start.
(We already covered the earlier rounds of warm-up.) I guess private school takes bigger strides, so it needs a longer stretch first.
In the afternoon it was my turn to pick Niuniu up. By the time I got to the entrance a crowd of parents had gathered, every neck craned, faces glowing with anticipation — like fans waiting at the airport for a celebrity.
After a while the kids trickled out. And there in the crowd — jacket tied around the waist, heavy-footed, hair everywhere, sun-darkened, face beet-red, brow deeply furrowed…… wasn’t that Niuniu?
She saw me, broke into a smile, and came bouncing over.
Niuniu picked cross country as her sport, and today was the first practice. The coach showed zero mercy for a bunch of kids who’d spent the whole summer gaming on the couch — straight into high-intensity training, ran them until they nearly threw up.
So apparently academics need a warm-up, but PE you can just slam into.
Mom, this sport is hard…… really hard. Her face was grave: I…… I’m afraid I can’t do it.
My heart skipped: you…… weren’t dead last, were you?
She shook her head: no, there were slower kids.
I exhaled: then you’re fine! No pressure.
My real fear was that private school only admits sports maniacs. As long as there are normal kids, she can get by.
Niuniu was still weighed down: but the coach says we have to run a 5K eventually. Five! Thousand! Meters!
I patted her back: relax, it gets easier with practice. Before long you’ll have it handled, trust me.
See, I told you to go running this summer and you wouldn’t — that sentence I held in all afternoon, and in the end never said.
At the mention of lunch, the light came back into Niuniu’s eyes. She gushed nonstop for five minutes. Even eating fancy multi-course dinners every night on a cruise, we never saw her this worked up.
…… It seems six years of public school lunches really had ground her expectations down to the floor.
The other big event was meeting her advisor. The school splits students into groups of eight, each group gets an advisor, and they meet every day.
Everything I know about her advisor: Swedish, very nice. Any further questions hit a wall of “I don’t know.” So what this person actually does, I’ll have to figure out over time.
Is all this… necessary?
Niuniu’s public-school friends had already started — walked in the door and went straight into hardcore classes, schedules packed wall to wall.
Private school really is a different animal. The foreplay — sorry, the prelude — is exceptionally thorough.
And it’s not just the kids warming up; we parents are still pacing them. Tuesday night, another parent meeting. Niu-ba swung by after work — two full hours — and sent me photo after photo of PowerPoint slides.
The next morning, after drop-off, there was also a parents’ coffee social. Also Niu-ba. For reasons you already know.
Judging by week one, private-school parents don’t get to relax at all — if anything there’s more to deal with than public school.
Back to Niuniu.
For the rest of the first week, she had one day of assemblies, one day of “Freshman Olympics” games, and one field trip to a park.
……
…… Fair enough. It’s a school, not Disney World — exactly how happy is a kid supposed to get?
One week in: the package has arrived, but we’ve only gotten through the outer wrapping.
Niuniu’s reaction hasn’t been as glowing as I’d hoped. Honestly? A little disappointing.
But as the unboxing goes on layer by layer, I’m getting calmer about it. A grown adult switching teams at work needs three months to adjust — how could a kid settle into a brand-new school overnight?
So it turns out the warm-up really is necessary. From here on, I’ll observe closely and wait patiently~
