Julie Jay: We cheered as our smallies emerged as preschool graduates

Irish Examiner

24-06-2025

It's been a week of endings and beginnings, as we finished up in naíonara and had our first big school trial run.
Finishing up in naíonara was surreal, to say the least.
Having procured flowers for the teachers, I, along with the rest of the parents' WhatsApp group, stood awkwardly trying to decide who would press the buzzer as if we were playing a game of runaway knock.
As one daddy commented, it felt a little like a funeral: the flowers, the Kleenex, the emotions running high.
Walking up as a group in silence only compounded the feeling that we were at a wake.
Still, we cheered as our smallies emerged as preschool graduates. They seemed relatively relaxed about it all, despite the stifled parental sniffles.
And so one chapter ended, and another, at big school, began.
The open night in Number One's new school earlier in the year was so pleasant that it practically had me wishing to go back and re-do junior infants all over again.
Any chance of us enrolling in a different school went out the window when the principal and vice principal produced a plate of Viscount biscuits.
The rules are fairly straightforward: no drinks or cigarettes because it is no longer the '80s, and your junior infant will be in hot water if they bring drugs to school.
We discussed the hazards posed by dangling earrings, with a lot of wincing, and I ruminated on whether my mother had been right not to allow me to pierce mine.
Eventually, at the ripe old age of 18, I rebelled and got some first communion-style studs in my lobes, nearly fainting with the agony of it all.
Despite my lack of piercings and the fact that I travelled to school in a horse and carriage, my Amish childhood was no different from that of my peers. It also explains my love of a bonnet.
Because the teachers at big school couldn't be nicer, and he is heading off with a couple of friends in tow, I find myself surprisingly OK with it all.
On our first day, he runs in with gusto, high-fiving the numerous kids he knows from his childminder like a Premier League footballer descending from the team bus.
So fuelled by sceitimíní is he that I have to chase him around the yard just to introduce him to his teacher.
He appears slightly baffled at being led into the naíonáin beaga room, and he looks at me as if to say 'I actually identify more as a senior infant'.
Still, any worry I had that he might be in any way nervous is quelled when he makes a dive for the pirate ship and is quickly joined by two of his buddies, because nothing brings people together like looting at sea.
We parents stand around not really knowing what to do, until the lovely teacher tells us we can head away, and we sidle off with no child protesting, a little disappointed that none of them cared whether we stayed or not when we had all braced ourselves for a scene from Les Mis.
After dropping him off at school, I make a trip to the graveyard. It is my dad's birthday today, the first one since he passed away last Christmas.
I ask him to mind Number One as he starts in this chapter. And it is then the tears come, because although finishing naíonara is sad, death is so much sadder.
I meet a fellow parent at the petrol station, who, seeing my slightly reddened eyes, presumes it is about the kids starting school.
I don't correct her as she hugs me because a hug is a hug, and I simply don't get embraced in petrol station forecourts enough anymore.
Less pumping, more hugging, I say.
The husband picks Number One up, and I await their return with bated breath, hoping that he had a nice time, and that nothing went too awry within the three-hour period.
When they both return, my boy is donning a plaster on his knee, having learned the hard way why no running is allowed in the yard. Life really is the school of hard knocks.
'How was it?' I ask , and he produces a card and a picture of a bird, which speaks to a morning well spent.
After the chats, he asks to go through his book from a náionara — a scrapbook that contains photos and pictures from throughout the year.
We leaf through Halloween and Christmas until we get to World Book Day, where Number One points to the photograph and says 'and that was the day mammy forgot my costume', with all the breeziness of a smiling assassin.
It would appear that I will never live this one down. Later on that day, I recount this conversation to my husband, who tells me that Number One had also pointed the page out to him as the day mammy forgot his costume, and added a 'can you believe it?' to jam that dagger straight into the aorta.
I couldn't be happier with Number One's new school, but there is a downside to having a class size of seven, which is that getting away with forgetting your homework might be tricky.
Though so far Number One has proven himself to be the most organised out of the lot of us, so perhaps the cycle of generational forgetfulness might finally be broken.