Happy Days

Chapter 2
Kindy Time

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Chapter Description: Dan spends a day at nursery school.

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This chapter is more for those who like the man with an adult mind trapped in a child’s body plot, not my cup of tea but I want to expand my range, so here’s my attempt. Fans of mental AR will have to wait one more chapter I’m afraid. Now without further ado.

I think morning must be the worst time of day. Its that point when you awake from your dreams and have to face reality. Now on top of that, I have never been a morning person. The very existence of morning people annoys me. I’ve never understood them and I never will. But now there is this added dimension. Every morning I awake expecting to find myself laying next to my wife, the alarm clock blaring, ready for another day at the dealership. And then I realize that I’m only four-years old, I’m sleeping in a pull-up because I have night-time accidents, so it probably wet, and I’m not going to get up and go to work, I’m going to spend another day at home helpless and insignificant.

This morning was even worse because rather than sleeping in my own comfortable bed, I am instead sleeping on the couch, not a fold-out couch, but a normal, lumpy, well-worn, couch. I’m also soaking wet and cold. Its already daylight out and I can hear someone workng in the kitchen. Today I have to go to that Kindy, filled with little kids, and be bored out of my mind. At least at home I’m lonely but I’ve got TV. As uncomfortable as I am here, lying in my own cold pee, on a lumpy couch, I think I might prefer to crawl back under the covers and stay there. But Liz isn’t about to let me do that.

"Dan wake up sleepy head its time for brekkie and I don’t want it to get cold now." Liz called from the kitchen.

I shuddered, I’d never hear the nd of it if I stayed in bed. Soon enough she’d send Emily to get me up and that was an embarassment I could do without. I padded to the bathroom with a pair of Thomas the Tank Engine undies and stripped off my wet pull-up, letting it fall to the floor with a slap. I try not to look at my little boy nub, it reminds me too much of my greatest loss of all. After drying off I slip on the underoos, they are dry and comforting. I see a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I am a pathetic sight, a little blonde boy with big blue eyes and soft hairless skin. I need no extra reminders of the loss of my manly form, so I rush to my room to get some clothes.

Liz gives me a smile as I sit at the kitchen table. "All dressed up and nowhere to go Dan?" she smirked.

"I want to look good for my first day."

"Dan, its a kindy filled with toddlers, I think that little polo shirt and dress shorts might be a bit much, don’t you think?"

"Let me be the judge of that, okay Liz."

Liz just shrugged and served me some scrambled eggs and a glass of milk. Dave walked in and took a seat, stuffing his mouth with food without so much as a hello or thanks mum. I was sure he’d get some on his just cleaned school shirt, but then what did a ten year old boy care about that. Emily smiled at me as she walked in. "How is daddy today, is he ready for kindy. I bet he’ll make lots of little friends to play with." she chided, giggling.

"Liz c’mon!" I pleaded.

Liz sighed, "Don’t tease your little father honey, he can’t help it if he’s just a little boy who has to go to kindy."

I wished I hadn’t said a word, clearly Liz wasn’t over our argument last night. I quietly finished my meal and headed out to the foyer to wait out of range of Liz’s wrath for the moment. Dave and Emily headed out a couple minutes later. "Oi, hold up now. Shoes please." I reminded Dave as he started to head out the door barefoot. To my delight Dave simply nodded and pulled on his sandals still sitting by the door. I looked at Emily who continued to stand defiantly barefoot at the door. "Well, get yours on too." Emily feigned ignorance, "Don’t know where they are." I eyed her sternly, well as sternly as a four-year old talking to a girl a good deal taller and heavier can. "Shoes right now Emily." Emily looked down at me and stepped closer. "No Daddy, I don’t wanna and you can’t make me." She was literally towering over me, I felt as though I had shrunk to the size of an ant. Dave came to my rescue, grabbing Emily by the arm and ordering her, "Get them on Em, their in your bag and you know it, stop being a little brat and don’t give dad cheek like that." To my surprise Emily’s defiant look disappeared and she pulled her sandals from her book-bag and strapped them on. As they walked down the drive I reflected on how my ten-year old son had become my protector and had more control over my daughter than I did.

"All right lets get going dear. No point in postponing the inevitable." Liz said as she got the car keys from the basket and pulled on her purse.

I sat down and began to pull on the little black sandals that I wore when we went out. I had had to fight Liz to get me the kind without little flashing lights in the soles, they were incredibly juvenile. I wished I could wear my trainers but my fingers simply weren’t capable of tying the laces anymore and it was even more embarassing to have to ask Liz or someone else to tie my shoes. As it was I fumbled a bit with the velcro straps. Liz looked unamused, "For goodness sakes honey you know they have a carpeted classroom they’ll make you take off the sandals as soon as you arrive."

"Yes and the kids’ school has the same rule and we still insist they wear their sandals there, it’s about dignity and appearance."

"Honey I think your just being silly, you look more like a stubborn little boy when you insist on these things so harshly."

I was in no mood to hear it. Liz lifted me into the car by the armpits and strapped me into a carseat, my legs dangled freely and I felt rather nice sitting in the soft chair. It was a small comfort today. "Okay there we are, snug as a bug. Now Dan you understand that you cannot tell anyone you aren’t really four or we will both be in huge trouble. I don’t care what happens, you keep that big mouth shut, eh."

Liz slammed the door shut and we were off. I considered ruining it all by doing just that, telling them up front who I was. But Liz was running my life and she could ruin my life if she chose to, or she could just leave me and then what would happen? I resigned myself to keeping quiet.

The kindy was a small stucco building set on a hill with a big grass field stretching out behind it. I could see the sea in the distance and a cool ocean breeze blew on my face as Liz took me out of the car and set me down. Liz pulled out a tube of sun block and starting smearing it on my face, arms and legs. After a great deal of squirming on my part she put a blue sun-hat on my head and took my hand. It felt odd being led by Liz as though I were really her child. Just as we were about at the door Liz stopped and knelt down. "I almost forgot Dan, after school today we have to go to the doctor’s office for you to have a psych evaluation for the permanent disability, so be ready." With that she straightened up and pulled me forward into the kindy.

I swear the place smelled like apple juice and biscuits. There seemed to be one main playroom that made up most of the building. Several playpens stood at the far side, each large enough to hold a couple small toddlers. The walls were painted a sickly bright shade of pink with shabby drawiings of who knows what posted along the wall with names and ages of the artists. The carpet was sky blue and toys lay here and there across it in no real order. Two women in their twenties were attending to the children at the moment. Another woman, much older, came out of a side room to greet us. I noticed she had shoes on which meant she probably had little to do with the actual care as a sign clearly reminded everyone to remove shoes in the playroom. The older lady reeked of too much perfume, it was enough to make me gag honestly. She leaned over to look at me, her big hoop earings spinning. "Well hello there little boy, aren’t you handsome, your mummy has quite a little lady’s man in the making here. How old are you sweetie pie?"

"Four." I told her.

"Well, what a big boy you are, why don’t you go play while I talk with your mummy about grown-up stuff. Look at all the toys we have. Yes, now go on, say bye to mummy dear, she’ll be back soon."

I felt a bit funny saying it but I mumbled, "Bye mummy," and headed into the playroom. I was about to remove my sandals when I realized that I shouldn’t be able to read the sign, I was supposed to be four, and no one had told me to take off my shoes. But maybe the expected me to know. I must have looked quite confused because one of the caretaking women came over to me. "Hello little fellow, are you ready to play?" she asked cheerily.

I nodded.

"Brilliant! Lets get those silly sandals off you and then we can have some fun."

She didn’t wait to see if I could do it myself, she just ripped them off and threw them in a small pile of little kid jandals and sandals by the door. She took me by the hand and led me quickly into the playroom. The kids seemed to be my age or younger, a few still clearly in nappies. One boy who appeared to be about two had apparently been dropped off in nothing but a nappy by his mum. Not that he cared, the little tyke was busy playing with a set of plastic rings. A little blonde girl was also lacking and pants, revealing her Barbie pull-ups, but at least she had on a shirt. What kind of mother dropped off their child in nothing but a nappy. Certainly his clothes couldn’t have gotten so dirty he had to take them off already, it was barely 8AM. The attendant had stopped in front of two boys who looked to be my age. "This is Brian," she said pointing to a Maori boy who was wearing an Incredible Hulk t-shirt and board shorts. "And this is Matty." He was a dark-haired boy who was a bit overweight and was wearing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles T-shirt that looked to be stretched to the limit. His belly-button was showing and the band of his batman underoos stuck out of his baggy orange cargo shorts. His face had chocolate smeared on his cheek. I couldn’t believe this, a fat little boy who’s mum fed him chocolate for breakfast. What a place this was.

"Now this is Danny and he’s the same age as you boys so why don’t you let him play workman too, okay."

Both boys nodded dutifully and the attendant, who never did tell me her name, headed off. I sat down on the carpet and looked at what they were doing. They were playing with a toy hammer and plastic pegs. Matty looked at me with no interest, "You gotta wait, this is my turn, I’m building a car!" he announced. Then he went to work banging the hammer into the plastic very hard, making exagerrated noises to himself. Meanwhile Brian just stared at me and picked his nose, sticking the snot on the plastic peg at his feet. "I wanna be a fireman!" he suddenly announced to me. I wasn’t sure what the appropriate response was. So I continued to stare at him. "I wanna pway fireman! You gotta be trapped and I saves you." He explained.

"Oh, right, um okay, what do I do?" I asked.

"Okay, you gotta come over here, c’mon, faster!" He grabbed my hand and dragged me away from Matty, who seemed uninterested in our new game.

The next couple hours were spent playing several games of fireman and a game of ambulance. The first seemed to involve me jumping out of an imaginary burning building and then rolling around like I was on fire till Brian put me out with his imaginary water hose, which was in reallity a jump rope. Ambulance was a game of doctor which I sadly discovered involved my being dragged by the legs across the carpet while Brian yelled, "Woo-hoo, woo-hoo, woo-hoo" This game ended abruptly when the attendant grabbed Brian by the arm and told him to let me go. While he was having a time out I had a chance to sit by myself and play half-heartedly with some toy cars.

A black-haired little girl of about four walked up to me as I played, carrying a barbie doll that it appeared someone had chewed on. She glared down at me and demanded, "Go away, those are my cars, mine!" It was this morning with Emily all over again.

"No, get your own." I told her.

The girl moved faster than I thought she could. She grabbed me by the ear and yanked so hard I thought it would come clean off. In reaction I shoved her to the ground. She landed hard on her butt and suddenly the sole of her bare foot was headed right at my face. She kicked me right in the mouth. But it was she who screamed out. She cut her foot on my tooth and suddenly she was yelling her head off. The attendant rushed over. "What’s the matter Rachel, what’s wrong honey?" the woman asked as she stroked the girl’s arm. Rachel sniffled and pointed at me. "He did it, he pushed me!" she accused.

"I did not, she nearly ripped my ear off!" I yelled, angry at being accused.

"Danny really, you’re a big boy, you should know better than to use your hands. You need to learn we don’t ever push people, especially girls, so lets have a time out for ten minutes for you."

She grabbed my hand and roughly pulled me over to the time-out corner. I swear I saw that little brat, Rachel, smiling. This was unbelievable, the injustice of it. No evidence, no trial, the word of a four-year old girl and I’m punished.

She sat me in the corner. "Now you stay right here and think about what you did till I come and get you."

So here I was having my first time out in nearly three decades and for something I hadn’t even done. All the other kids could see me being punished, some smiled and laughed at me. This was exactly what I was afraid of. After what seemed to be an eternity the attendant returned. "So have you learned your lesson?"

"Yes."

"We keep our hands to ourselves don’t we?"

"Yes we do." I agreed sullenly.

"Good, now go apologize to Rachel and you can have some snack."

Now that was the icing on the cake, I had to apologize to my attacker for something I didn’t do. But spending the day in the corner was not an option so off I went. Rachel was eating her morning snack, sitting on the floor. Wearing her minnie-mouse pink short-alls and with her hair in pig-tails I would have thought she was a cute little girl if I hadn’t known better. She was a really a little bully. Rachel looked up from her milk carton nervously. "Okay Rachel, I’m sorry about what happened, lets be friends from now on," I said as genuinely as possible. Rachel nodded but looked distrustful, "’Kay" she simply said, returning her focus to the milk.

The day seemed to drag on forever. After lunch the attendants announced it was time to do some colouring and finger-painting. Everyone seemed very happy about that. I waited for them to pass out smocks but instead they went around taking off kids’ shirts. I couldn’t believe this, none of the kids seemed to mind. Bullying Rachel did nothing as the attendant undid the buttons on her short-alls and slipped off her t-shirt. Soon everyone but me was down to their undies or nappies strutting around as if this was perfectly normal. It seemed amazing to me that kids had such little sense of modesty and such a lack of privacy. The blonde attendant leaned over me, reaching for my shirt. "No, I don’t wanna. Leave me alone, I want my shirt on. Leave it on." I insisted. The other children looked at me like I was crazy but the woman stopped.

"Don’t you want to play finger paints Danny, its really very fun. think you’d like that more than just sitting here all by yourself. But we can’t get your nice clothes all dirty can we? So c’mon, don’t you want to play?" she coaxed, invitingly.

But there was nothing in the world that would convince me to stand here in front of these strange women and all these kids in nothing but my undies. "No, I don’t care."

The attndant shrugged, "Okay no one will make you, but if you want to join us you can if you change your mind."

It was a long afternoon but I didn’t change my mind. I watched them colour and get all messy and enjoy it. Then they took us all out back, and let the kids play in the little pool. Some kids had on swim togs, others went in with their undies on, a couple young boys pulled off their nappies and ran around the pool in the nude. The attendants didn’t seem to care. I didn’t care to get wet so I sat by myself and watched their silly antics. I had no desire to join them.

Finally the day came to an end and Liz came to pick me up. I pulled my sandals back on while the attendants talked to Liz as though I was deaf. "He has a lot of trouble with playing. He absolutely refused to play with the paints or in the pool, he has a fear of taking off his shirt apparently." they explained. Liz just nodded and acted concerned.

"Well I’ll have a talk with him and I’m sure he’ll be no trouble at all tomorrow." Liz assured them.

As we drove to the doctor’s office Liz looked st me in the mirror with a cross look. "I told you to behave and act like a normal boy."

"I wasn’t going to take off my clothes so that I could get covered in paint. I’m sorry Liz, I tried for you, but it isn’t going to work."

Liz sighed loudly, "Well lets get through this check-up, then we’ll talk some more about this."

Liz pulled the car into the carpark at the doctor’s office. I assumed it would be a pedeiatrician and was not disappointed. A tall blonde woman was leading her young son out of the building as we pulled in. The poor kid was padding barefoot across the carpark with his arm in a sling, crying quietly. Great, I thought, now I’d have to wait in a loud waiting room filled with more kids. Liz lifted me back out of the car and onto the pavement. Taking my hand she led me into the building. A sign on the door to our right read "Dr. John Lewis MD, Pediatrician." But to my surprise Liz led me down a hallway to another office in the back of the building. The sign on this door read, "Leo D. Miller, Psychologist." Now that was odd.

"Liz why are we at a psychologist’s office?" I asked.

"Oh, didn’t I mention, this is a psychiatric evaluation dear." She said as she lead me into the waiting room.

The room was clearly designed for children. The ceiling had clouds painted on it and the magazines were all on parenting, a toy chest sat in the corner. The receptionist looked up as we entered. "Hello, please fill this out. The therapist will be with you soon." she said as she handed Liz a clipboard and form.

They kept us waiting nearly twenty minutes. Finally the door to the office swung open and a tall gruff man came out followed by a thin and awkward looking young teen who’s pimply face had a withdrawn look to it. He looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here as played with the collar of his rugby shirt. Oddly he wore long cargo pants despite the hot weather and he kept crossing and uncrossing his bare feet as though in a desperate hurry to go. For some reason his uneasiness seemed contagious and I felt anxiety growing about seeing this therapist or doctor or whatever the heck he was. The tall man finished his conversation with the doctor, declaring in tones that filled the waiting room, "Well the boy will be okay, I was the same way at thirteen, sure he’ll get over it. Well have a good one doc. Cheers." The teen looked very embarassed but kept quiet as he headed out behind his dad.

The therapist poked his head out into the waiting room and looked right at me. "Daniel is it?" he asked, speaking directly to me. I nodded promptly. "Well come on in, your wife can wait right here, we’ll be done in a jiff, no worries." I followed his lead into the office wondering what on earth was he planning to evaluate and why I needed this done at all. The office wasn’t at all what I expected and I began to feel a bit more nervous about what was going on here.

 

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