The assimilation at The Acorn School has gone well to this point. Now we have to separate. I am beaming with confidence based on Zubin’s previous performances and shockingly charming behavior. Other kids were all over the place: one young lady insisted that her mother join her at the sand table from the “adults” area, two other gentlemen got into a mini fisticuffs right in front of me when a toy train became the single point of both of their fixations. That’s right, 3 years old and already a bit of the handbags.

We head to school as we have the last few times and I take my seat and the session progresses with the routine nervous chatter, although we are a little bit more familiar now. Then, about 30 minutes in, the director of the school comes in and “announces” to the kids that the mommies and daddies will be having a “meeting” with her down the hall. Apparently, some kids may have to update their blackberries? Zubin looks up and finds me, but I quickly turn and jet because his face is starting to square up.

At this point as all the parents leave the room, a Three Mile Island-style chain reaction of crying starts to take place in the room. First 2 kids start, and then they each set off 2 more and so on. 0-8 crying kids in 1.2 seconds. Then amazingly the volume of crying starts to increase as if more people have started to cry. My guess is that either the teachers were crying or the tables and chairs couldn’t hold it together anymore.

Over the 30 minutes of oscillating howling, I sat with the other parents in the waiting area were gritting their teeth to resist the urge to grab their kid and make a break for it. We made small talk and tried to identify which crying voices belonged to us. Eventually this became easier, because one by one the voices in the choir started to drop off. Eventually there was one voice. We all wondered who it was. Then the unidentified child gave out a desparate cry: “I want my daddeee!” I looked at the only other dad at the table, he shook his head and said “my daughter calls me Papa”.

After that day, we started sending Zubin’s nanny to drop him off at school. I heard stories about crying until he vomited. One time she had to wipe up the school bathroom because of this (thanks, Ro-ro). NYC Mom focused on setting up as many consecutive playdates with his classmates as possible to increase the frequency of contact with the new kids. After about two more weeks Zubin started to trust the teachers and become familiar with his new crew and well, now I drop him off and he doesn’t even look back.