Stories from my former life -- Kindergartener Skips School

When my children were 5 and 7 we moved Florida to Virginia. It was Christmas time and we had lots of snow, which was a new and fun experience for the children. We also got a new puppy for the children to help they aclimate to their new home.

All went well and January came and the kids began school in their new school.

My husband and I both worked and my mother-in-law was living with us temporarily to help with the children. As she was missing a leg, she could not walk the dirt road to the bus stop with the kids, but my son and daughter walked together and met two older children along the road. The four of them caught the bus together in the mornings.

On the third day of school at about 10:30 a.m., I received a phone call at work from my mother-in-law. Here is what she said:

"Judy, I heard some scratching at the door. I went to the door and saw nothing. I went back to the couch and again I heard the scratching at the door. I went back to the door and looked down...there was Jen (my 5 year old).

She was cold and crying.

I asked her what she was doing and she said that she had decided not to get on the bus!"

It turns out that my daughter had not gotten on the bus, (my son had told her that she was NOT going to make him late by having to try to convince her to get on the bus) and had crawled into the doghouse with her puppy, thinking she would spend a lovely day skipping school! But she got bored and cold....she ate her lunch from her lunchbox...played with her puppy, and eventually, decided she had to get inside to warm up. She was trying to get in the front door without alerting my mother-in-law, but every time she got up to the door, she slipped...this kid was not used to snow!

When I got home from work that night, I asked her why she had skipped school. She said she wanted to go back to Florida. (She was really homesick for her babysitter, who she thought of as a grandmother). So I called her babysitter (Mamaw) and let her talk with Jen. We never had another day of skipping kindergarten! (Now high school might have been a little different, but, that's another story).