Abby's Last Day of School

Exactly one month ago, I posted about Abby's first day of school. Last week, I wrote (rather cryptically) about a certain mistake I'd committed. So, here's the story (as told over and over, these last few days, in our house) of how those earlier posts and this post's title go together.

Once upon a time, there was a little girl. She was very beautiful and very smart. One winter, when the time came for mommies and daddies to take their children for kindergarten registration, the beautiful and smart little girl went with her mommy to the school board building. They took all the right forms and the little girl’s birth certificate. The little girl’s name went on the list with all the other children.

That summer, the little girl got letters from her new school. They told her about supplies to buy and who her teacher would be and when she would have her first day in her new school. The little girl was a little nervous, but she was also a little excited. When it was time for her first day of school in September, the girl had to be very brave. As she went to school, she learned that she really liked her teacher and that she could make new friends.

Some days, she was still very nervous. In her pocket, she always carried a very small piece of fabric, cut from her soft white blanket, to remind her of her mommy. Her teacher said she was doing a wonderful job in school. In fact, she even got an award at the first kindergarten assembly—a Principal’s Award for listening attentively in class.

One day, while the beautiful, smart little girl was at school, her mommy got a phone call from the school board. (This next part of the story should be told with a high-pitched, shrieking voice, wide eyes, and much hand-waving.) “We’ve just discovered that we had a problem!” said the woman from the school board. “We see that Abby’s birthday shows that she is too young for our kindergarten program.” How could it be that crazy mommy, crazy daddy, and the crazy school sent the little girl to school when she was not even old enough??!! Crazy!!! Sometimes, even grown-ups make mistakes!!!

So the crazy mommy and the crazy daddy and the crazy school talked some more. The crazy mommy cried about her mistake. The school board sincerely apologized for their mistake. The crazy daddy thought a lot about God’s providence. Then, the crazy mommy and the crazy daddy and the beautiful, smart little girl talked. When she was told about her mommy and daddy’s crazy mistake, the little girl said that she would like to stay home with her crazy mommy and her little brother until she was really old enough to go to kindergarten. She said that next year she would help all the little 5-year-olds who didn’t know what to do, because she would know all about kindergarten already. She was a little sad about saying good-bye to her very special, first-ever teacher and her new friends, but she knew that she would see them again.

So, exactly one month from her first day of kindergarten, Abigail Hope Tapper had her last day of kindergarten—at least for a while.