My Chicken In My BMW Car

I suddenly recalled something that JW did when he was two and a half years old. But a little background first.

When he was just 18 months old, I enrolled JW in a playgroup. As both my husband and I were working, I did not want JW to be at home with Lucia, our domestic helper, all day long. So the moment he was old enough, I enrolled him in a playgroup. It started with just a few hours twice a week.

It was tough at first. He went through separation anxiety. No, correct that. We BOTH went through separation anxiety! I recall the first day when I was there with him. Not wanting to distract him, I just sat in a corner and observed. Being only 18 months old, he had already learnt how to walk. But sitting on a chair and getting off by himself was still a bit of a problem. My heart sank when he fell as he tried to get off the chair and sustained a bruise on his cheek. That was his first day at Raintree.

Raintree was housed in an old black and white colonial house set in a beautiful large piece of land . I was drawn to the lush and quiet surrounding. It was so green and peaceful, with lots of space for kids to run around in. Sadly, the school has since closed and the house is now a private residence.

The first weeks were still rather difficult and he would cry in school. According to one of his teachers, whenever he went to a particular area during his break, he would start to cry. Then one day, she realised why......there was a wall where photos taken during field trips were displayed. And there was photo of me together with him in one of the photos! Poor JW was thinking of and missing mummy....

JW was such an adorable boy that everyone in the school knew him. One day, when he was about 3, his teacher had to be away for a while and the school supervisor, Miss Joanne took over the class. When his regular teacher came back, he went to Miss Joanne and said to her, "Miss Joanne, you can go now. My teacher is back." Miss Joanne was so tickled, she told me about the incident.

Oh dear, how old memories start flooding back when I think about the early years. But back to what I wanted to write in the first place. One of JW's teachers, Mrs Surreinder, had captured what he said by typing out on a piece of paper with his drawing of a chicken. It was titled My Chicken:

My Chicken

My...My  Mrs Surreinder my white chicken is my friend. I love my white chicken. My white chicken can paddle boats. Chicken sit inside the boat and merrily merrily down the stream. Then my chicken sat in my BMW car. My chicken send car lighting store. My chicken went to the lighting store to buy car and lighting. Lightning comes first then rain will come. 

Mrs Surreinder had captured the word "lighting" but I'm pretty sure he meant "lightning" because if I recall correctly, just around that time, my brother or my dad had told him that lightning comes before thunder and that if you see lightning, it means that the rain will come soon.

Ten years on and my boy is still telling stories, but not of chickens anymore!