Molly's first day

Unlike Betsy's first day at school, Molly's "rentrée" was a roller coaster. Fortunately, we started and ended the ride on a high note.

Below are five pictures, in chronological order: (a) Molly before leaving in the morning, on the balcony outside her bedroom; (b) Madame Boulan (in brown coat), the teacher, introducing Molly the American before school to a group of girls in her class, all of whom seemed genuinely happy about the prospect of such an interesting classmate; (c) still before school, Molly has a rather nervous expression (and a much tighter grip on Cricket's hand) than she did earlier; (d) one minute after entering the classroom, Molly came back out in tears; (e) three hours later, with Cricket and Dave nervously waiting, Molly emerged with her class (next to Sophie, in the dark purple and now a good friend) wearing a huge grin on her face -- sorry, Dave the cameraman did not do a good job of capturing it so you'll simply have to take our word for it: She was REALLY happy.












The story:

Molly emerged from her room combed, dressed, and chipper. She was thrilled to be going back to school, and so very ready for companions her own age! She chirped and chatted through breakfast, telling stories she made up on the spot. It was a little bit terrible to see her so happy before something we knew might be so hard, but the grownups tried to remain hopeful.

Betsy's school starts 5 minutes before Molly's, so we went there first. The chaos and confusion of too many parents in a preschool hallway dampened Molly's enthusiasm just a little, but she enjoyed our rather speedy walk past the park to her school (We now know the appropriate park gates are open so that all the betwixt-school foot traffic can go through the park instead of alongside, but we didn't want to risk having to turn back on a tight schedule on the first day).

The moment we entered Molly's school courtyard, her grip on Cricket's hand tightened. She started looking brave instead of unreservedly happy (picture 3). Molly's teacher introduced her to a number of the girls standing nearby (picture 2) Mme. Boulan invited Cricket to come inside for 5 or 10 minutes (which she did) but Molly walked with no coercion in the double line for the class.

Mme. Boulan directed the children to hang up their jackets on the coat hooks, explaining that they would need to share, as there were many more children than hooks. Molly understood and complied, but burst into tears as she returned to her desk. She and Cricket ducked quickly back out into the courtyard for the pep talk and recovery before embarrassment over the tears themselves could set in (picture 4). Molly pulled it together and went back in.

Cricket and Dave spent the morning buying him a bike, making lunch, and worrying about Molly. We knew she was in such good hands she'd eventually be OK, but the interim looked like it might be very, very hard, indeed.

We returned to the school to pick Molly up for lunch time, and saw her as her class emerged, bouncing out of her classroom, grinning. She waved happily when she saw us, but stayed with her class until they were released from the courtyard. The fantastic Mme. Boulan signed a big, big smile to us, and we knew all was well. Molly couldn't wait to get back for the afternoon. She reported over dinner that she'd skipped all the way to the bakery to buy bread (her favorite errand!) because she loved school so much.

This is one resilient and brave girl!