La Salle Debain

Today was Janmashtami. There were record crowds at the mandir at
midnight this year. But that's not the big news today.

As she is approaching the ripe old age of three, my wife and I decided it was time to put our daughter Shailaja in preschool. We found a nice one a little further away than we would have liked but still a manageable distance, filled out the forms and paid the fees and then spent a nerve-wracking Labor Day weekend worrying about how much Shailaja was going to miss us or more accurately how much we were going to miss her. Luckily for Jyoti, she had an 8:30 meeting so she spared herself a wrenching scene. Instead it fell upon me to take her.

So by 8am I had Shailaja ready to go. She did Saraswati puja and wrote 'a' for Vidyarambha. Then disaster struck when it suddenly dawned on her that although pappa was taking her to school, he would not be staying. By the time we got there, she was firmly attached to my leg and would not budge. However the schools large selection of toys soon tempted her away. I had to go upstairs to ask the director some questions and by the time I came down, she was engrossed in making new friends. In fact she didn't even notice when I left!

When Jyoti and I came to pick her up in the evening, Shailajas' teacher reported that she had been a good girl all day and had not asked for us once.