HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN-SHE’S OFF TO SCHOOL

It finally came time, Deysi’s pride and joy got her butt sent to school. It was a happy time for all except her Mom. She was frantic. She had spent the last 5-1/2 years with her girl 24/7’s 365 days each year. They were like an extension of each other. This girl took to learning at full throttle. She loved it and couldn’t wait for the fun to start each day. Her Mom shed a tear or two every morning for a long time. She used to stand, wistfully, in front of the school, hoping that the doors would open and she would come out, with a day off. The first school she was enrolled in was in Concord, and just about across the street from us. No commute for her!

Prior to entering school she had spent hours with us learning her letters, their sounds and her numbers up to about 100. Shortly after she started school, I think within a month or so, she arrived home one day and proudly announced “well I can read now”! Yeah, right says I. She sat down, pulled out her book and started reading! We were shocked. There was some history of this in the family, her cousin had taught herself to read before she entered kindergarten (much to the shock of a kindergarten teacher).

Anyway our girl started to read everything she could get her hands on, and this has lasted throughout her life. Shortly she would be joined by another little bundle of joy, who in the family tradition, also became a voracious reader. It was about at this time, that I stopped contradicting her if she told me she could do something. If she said she could do something, then you didn’t want to waste your money betting against it.

School progressed very peacefully for her. One day she announced that she had been chosen to appear in a television ad for the school. it was a private school and part of their marketing was TV slots. Sure enough she came on right in the middle of tv programming. There she was with a toothless (front teeth gone) smile, grinning out at me from the television. She also appeared on their School fliers and all other forms of advertising that they used. Did she get paid? Nope! It was kinda cute though. I still have videos of her commercials. This was a memory, for Deysi, of one of the most traumatic times of her life. Quickly thereafter she got busy making another one, so she had a companion during the day.