The Road to 40 Day 94/365: First day experience

There’s not a lot of time for transition from vacation, as we went straight back to school after spending the whole school break in full vacation mode.

Vino ended Year 3 on June 27th. We spent the weekend in the house to pack things and went to the PH on July 1st. We got back to SG on August 9th, and school started on August 11th. The good thing is that there’s no jetlag, so there’s not a lot of adjustment needed – we just had to sleep earlier and wake up earlier than we did over the past month.

It wasn’t too hard to wake him up for the first day. He pulled the blinds up the night before, so he could immediately see the morning light. He pointed out that it’s raining hard, to which I said he should hurry because Grab might take longer to get.

We went down a little past 8am, and true enough, it took a while before we got a ride because we had one cancel on us.

We got to school at around 8:30am, which was late already, but there were still a lot of cars coming in. He said he knew where his room was, and we proceeded to walk all the way up to the third floor. By then, he said he doesn’t know where it is already.

A teaching assistant saw us, and I asked where his classroom was. Turns out, she is the teaching assistant for his class. Vino gave me a hug and had an uneasy smile as he walked into the room.

As soon as he stepped in, a guy called him by name, gave him a nice high five, and immediately looked comfortable in his new class. I waved back to his teacher, who acknowledged my presence.

I went home to doomscroll and waste time playing Candy Crush – things I should really cut down in my life. I did get to fold the clothes and put them on shelves, so at least I was not entirely useless.

What I am is forgetful, though.

I can’t seem to find my ID to pick up Vino from school. I’ve looked in all the bags that I’ve used and even those I haven’t used – just to make sure. We have a place where we put it, and I don’t understand why I didn’t put it there in the first place.

Usually, it’s because it’s in my bag, which I am finding out is not true.

Anyway, I went to pick up Vino using Che’s ID. No one really checks it, they just need to see that I have a light blue school ID strap.

From his first day of school, he said what he gathered was everyone knows K-Pop Demon Hunter, kids played 99 Nights in the Forest, but almost everyone played Grow A Garden.

This is not the information I was looking forward to, but it’s the first day, and at least he is sharing what they talked about.

We walked to the supermarket to buy stuff for dinner. I asked what he wanted and told him that dinner would be his lunch the next day. Of course, Adoboy would ask for adobo.

I asked him to take a bath right as we got home because I wanted to wash his uniform, which we borrowed from his friend. Thankfully, another friend answered our call for an extra uniform we could use.

Vino’s teacher told me that the school understands the shortage of uniforms, so they are allowing kids to wear regular shirts at least in the first two weeks of the school year. However, I’m getting a sense from Vino that he doesn’t want to stand out like that.

So I guess I’ll be washing clothes on a daily basis until I get the uniform situation handled.

Around this time, I also received a message thanking me for volunteering to be a parent representative for the class. So I got a message from the teacher offering a link to join the class group chat.

It led to a signup form, and I put my name in. Sure, I read through it, and it looked weird because it said it was a volunteer form. Still, I filled in my details thinking maybe they just used a form they used before.

And now here I am, apparently a parent representative volunteer.

Che asked if it sparks joy in me, and I said I still don’t know. But I guess it will be a good way to find purpose for this school year, especially as I enter my second month of unemployment.

I cooked adobo longer than I should. For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to add salt before adding soy sauce and vinegar. Not surprisingly, it was quite salty for a while. I added a lot of water to counteract this, but also because I wanted to boil eggs in it.

It turned out ok, because I wanted it really soft for Vino to cut himself. He had a lot of it, as per usual. Ippudo and adobo are surefire ways to get him to eat a lot, hungry or not.

Vino is in his era of curiosity about Marvel. He keeps watching Infinity War and Endgame, but recently, he’s been asking questions about it. So I told him we should just start from the beginning.

We watched Iron Man 1, and we were on Iron Man 2 when we went to the room. At some point, he just turned to do his nightly prayer, gave me his glasses, and asked me to change the show on TV because he was going to sleep.

It was still almost 11pm, but I appreciated that I didn’t have to force him to sleep.

I guess I’m parenting the way I wanted to be parented. When I was his age, I feel like I went to sleep with a bit of spite because I was forced to do things.

It’s not like I’m not forcing him to do things as well, but I always tell Vino that he has to let me parent him at times because at the end of the day, I’m still his dad. If he will disrespect me or not go by the rules that I set, I’m just a guy he lives with.

I think it’s rubbing off on him, as I always get “ok” when I ask him for small things or tasks. It’s still early, but Vino has been consistent in a lot of things when we keep reminding him about it.

Che has a big presentation the next day, so she wanted to go to bed early as well. She slept at 3am on Sunday to finish the presentation. It will be her last big box to check before ending her stint in Manila, so we’re cheering her on to crush it!

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