Sports day

Aah.. sports day turned out to be not such a sporting day. In my previous post I had mentioned that I was in two minds whether to take S for her sports day or not since the hubby was not there, and it would involve getting up far too early in the morning. Anyway I decided to push myself and make the effort to take S. My colleague whose son is one month older to S had his Sports day just the day before and my colleague said he really enjoyed himself, so that basically clinched it. I had these visions of S running in the race and being delighted to spend time with her playschool friends outside school (especially since she talks about them so much!)
That was not to be. I woke up S at 7:15 am, a whole hour ahead of her usual waking up time of 8:15-8:30. She was most reluctant to drink her milk so early and after a lot of pestering and running behind her she finally drank her milk, got ready and we were out of the house by 8 am. Her bad mommy had not planned adequately and S was the only child there not to be wearing the school T shirt. I had left it behind in the other house, and when I enquired in the school about buying a new T shirt for the sports day they said they were out of stock and it would take a couple of weeks to get another one- too late! Anyway I put a brown T shirt for S- as close to a yellow T shirt as possible which is the colour of the school shirt, but she still stood out like a sore thumb. I only reassure myself that she would not have noticed it- I mean how often do you look down and see what T shirt you are wearing? And also the other kids are not big enough to point out that S is wearing a different colour T shirt!
We reached the venue and the other kids from her playschool were already sitting in a group. I tried to persuade S to join them- mentioning the other kids in class whom she chatters about, and even the teachers stepped in, asking her to come join them, but she was to have none of it. She clung to me and refused to go near her playschool group. I was a bit surprised since she usually rushes off inside her playschool without a backward glance, but I guess this was firstly a new environment (sports field) and also it was early in the morning for her and she may have been cranky! I don’t know what exactly she was afraid of, but she clung to me for the next half hour.

The LKG class started with the March past- it was more of ribbon waving than march past but all the kids were excited, the parents were even more excited and even S was riveted watching them. Then it was time for the playschool races. The parents had to stand on one side and the children on the other side (with the teachers) and run from the teachers to the parents. I took S to the start line and made her watch the first two races (they were of the afternoon batch of the playschool) so she would get an idea of what was expected of her. She seemed enthu enough, but when her name was called for the race she again clung to me and refused to go to the teacher at the start line, I tried to persude her that her friends are standing next to her, and mummy has to go to the opposite side and she is to come running to mummy, but no there was much of crying and stomping of the feet at the thought of mummy going away so I had to run in the race alongwith her! After the race, we went to the other side of the field where some of her playschool friends were and she spent about ½ hour running around the field and generally watching what they were doing. One of the boys tried to take her hand and make her run with him, but she was more comfortable being by herself and generally running around the place. She ran onto the main track a couple of times, where the senior kg races were going on, and had to be retrieved by the teachers/or me.
Finally around 10 am the certificate and medal ceremony happened. A good thing I liked about the sports day was that there were no prizes for first/second etc- all participants got a certificate and gold medal. They were called to the dais and the teacher gave them the certificate and put the medal around the neck. S of course screamed loudly when they put the medal around her neck, so I had to quickly take it off. S gets really uncomfortable when people (including me and the hubby) try to put things on her- a brooch on her shirt, or a necklace around her neck etc. She must be the least dressed up girl I know- no clips, no jewelry (ears also not yet pierced- I was too scared when she was young, and now she’ll pull at it, so will have to wait till she’s old enough to ask for it!). So a befitting ending to a cranky first sports day.
I used to love sports day at school- I used to take part in everything (was quite the enthu cutlet), hardly used to win any prizes (maybe a third in a race where there were only 5 participants) but I used to still enjoy taking part in all the track events. Hopefully S will enjoy the sports days more as she grows up. Or maybe she takes after the hubby, who is completely disinterested in all sports- both watching and participating!