Questa è Enida

My son has grown so much that he is now off to Harvard (Ek eleh Enida berlagak tak hingat!) Tadika Sri Puncak, 200 meters away from home. His first day was awesome for him. Not so for me. He just walked in, started touching all the ‘tools and gadgets’ in the gobok and gave me the ‘what-is-this-woman-who-looks-like-my-Mom-doing-here-still’ look after we were done standing still singing the national anthem at the assembly. Edrick never stood still, if you ever wondered. The whole song, he was weighing the buiding blocks. There was a weighing scale there, of course.

The first three days, Edrick only went in for two hours each. We didn’t want to tire him out too soon. And on the first day, he came home topless. Reason being: after school, I was going to get a couple sets of Tues-Fri uniform and trying to get him the right size. Off went the Monday uniform and never landed back on him! It was a scorching hot day. Didn’t blame him either. I wish I could walk around with a lot less on top myself.

The second day was not too bad either. But came the third, he knew this woman who looks like his Mom would not be around for a couple hours. So, he did the waterworks for a bit. Fourth day, the same thing. But the good thing was, he never ran back to me or struggled to not go into his classroom. He just cried almost quietly with tears running down those chubby cheeks.

Second week, first day…he looked happy to go to school. We got to the gate, Edrick grabbed his school bag from my hand with a frown, the principal walked him in and he looked back at me when I said goodbye…with teary eyes. He cried for a good ten or twenty seconds. But no resistance.

And the rest is history, biology, geography, geometry…