Two big lunchboxes sit full and ready, side-by-side on the kitchen bench. One is blue, one is green.

It is the first day of Term 3 in October 2020. That’s the year COVID-19 wreaked its initial havoc on human life. It’s the year schools had to lock their gates and school-aged children – in fact, all children – had to stay home.

But today we believe that is all behind us.

Yesterday we had gleefully put school hats in school bags, pulled out school lunchboxes and chosen the school snacks. We were so excited about these symbols of normal life.

This morning, my eldest child T is all dressed and ready. Teeth and hair brushed, shoes on, she is now running in excited circles around the house singing the chorus of Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake it off’ on repeat.

But, I notice as T packs the blue lunchbox, there is no sign of my second child, B.

In their bedroom I find O talking earnestly to her mermaid toys. In fine toddler form, she started her day and downed a bowl of cereal nearly two hours ago.

Then I see B is still asleep in bed.

No, not asleep, I see on closer inspection. He is crouched under the doona in something that would probably count as a stone pose in yoga. The doona is tucked tightly and deliberately around this round shape.

Ah, so he’s waiting to be found.

Hide and seek

“Goodness me,” I saw with exaggerated concern, “I can’t find my son anywhere. Where could he be?”

I open and close the cupboard doors as noisily as I can.

“Hmm not in there,” I say. I make a big show of peering under the bed too.

I turn to O with a big wink.

“Have you seen your brother anywhere?” I ask innocently.

She grins and nods encouragingly. She points to the bed. “He d’er!” She squeaks.

“He’s there? Oh yes!” I say triumphantly.

I go to pull the doona back with a flourish, but it doesn’t budge. I pull it a little more softly, and feel B pulling it back.

Oh. So he does not want to be found.

“Hey darling, what’s going on?” I say gently, “Ready to put your school clothes on?”

He moans. Then silence.

“Come on,” I say, “your friends are waiting to see you. All 57 of them.”

B’s dinner had gone cold last night while he answered our question, ‘who do you want to see at school tomorrow’? In response had reeled off every name he could think of, which amounted to 57 little people.

We’d been amazed that he remembered so many names, as he hadn’t physically seen these children in months.

Like all Prep (or Foundation) students in Victoria in 2020, B had walked with nervous excitement through the school gates in late January. He’d been very ready for school.

Then he found himself walking out again just eight weeks later, in March, with a bag full of books and crayons, an ipad, some vague instructions about something called ‘remote learning’ and a lot of mixed feelings.

Like all Prep students in Victoria in 2020, B had spent around half of his first year of school at home in lockdown with his family. He’d spent more time on the internet than the school playground.

Yet his sense of connection to the school had remained so strong.

This morning, I’d expected him to bounce out of bed and beg to be taken to school early.

But like most days in my parenting life, things were not going to plan.

Let’s read

I poke the bundle under the blanket, very gently, where I think it might be ticklish.

He moans again. “Stop it, Mum,” comes the muffled voice. “I am NOT going to school today.”

Then I realise. He has first-day nerves allover again.

I clap my hands together, glancing at the clock, and announce, “Let’s read the jelly bean book!”

During the many weeks before B started school, we’d loved reading Jelly Bean goes to school, (auth. by Margaret Roc, ill. by Laura Hughes),again and again. And again.

In this picture book, the girl with candy for a first name discovers that school is an interesting place and your imagination is welcome there too.

Like all first-day-of-school books, it gave B a nice mix of comfort and curiosity about the many days of school ahead.

The doona opens a little on one side. My heart sinks as I see B’s cheeks streaked with tears, eyes puffy.

“Want to come sit with me?” I ask softly.

He shakes his head, lower lip protruding. “I’m staying here.”

“Okay,” I say, with another nervous glance at the clock. “Let’s look at all the things Jelly Bean loves about school.”

We work through the friendly teacher, the amazing art supplies, the fabulous playground and someone else’s toilet accident. B is inching closer, and I think Jelly Bean may be working her magic again.

But as soon as we finish the book, B disappears under the doona again.

The tears have stopped. We have arrived at stubborn refusal.

Let’s read…again

Just as I am about to launch into ultimatum mode, O waddles over with a board book in her cute little hands.

“Cluck, cluck,” she says, putting it in my hands. She struts around like a chicken, flapping her arms and pecking around the room.

The side of the doona peels back as B sits up. “What is she doing?” B demands.

“I’m a sad ticken,” O says between clucks. At that, B scoffs and crosses his arms. Like an angry duck.

The book now in my hands is Happy Hippo, Angry Duck, by Sandra Boynton. It was one of B’s favourites as a toddler.

He loved to act out each of the animals and their big feelings, over and over again, until we all collapsed in giggles and clucks.

This may be the perfect little book for today’s big feelings.

“Hello little person, how are you today?” I start, “Is your mood quite terrific, or only…okay?”

“Are you happy as a hippo, or angry as a duck? Maybe sad as a chicken, can you sadly say…”

Right on cue, both B and O chime in with a sniffly, “cluck, cluck, cluck”.

B crawls into my lap and takes the book in his hands.

He acts out the big feelings on each page: the worried rabbit, the contented frog. The cow that is completely confused, and the pig that is sweetly amused.

And just like that, he is not the stonewall of school refusal he was earlier.

When we finish the book, O takes it back to the bookshelf and wanders away, still murmuring ‘cluck, cluck’ to herself.

I kiss the top of B’s soft, messy hair.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were so sad about going to school today,” I say.

“I’m not sad,” he says matter-of-factly, “I like going to school.” He draws a big shuddering breath. “But I don’t like going without you.”

I hug him tighter, letting the words hang in the air.

“I will miss you so much when you’re at school today,” I say, trying not to look at the clock again. “Do you think you will miss me too, miss me so much it hurts?”

He sniffs loudly and nods twice.

“Are you worried I won’t be there to pick you up?” I ask.

“No,” B says, “I know you will be there. But I’m worried I will be brave and go to school today, and then tomorrow I will feel brave but I will not be able to go to school. Because there might be another lockdown.”

I push down my involuntary shudder at the word ‘lockdown’.

He continues, “And then…and then I’ll have to start all over again.” He lets out a big sigh, as if he has finally put down a heavy load.

And I guess he has.

A promise I can’t make

He has just summed up the wild sense of insecurity and uncertainty we have all been grappling with through months of lockdown.

For the Preps of 2020, it’s not enough to know your family will be there to take you home at the end of the school day.

These children need to know that after they go home, they’ll be able to come back to school again the next day.

I am stumped. I can’t offer him a false promise.

I don’t know what Cyrus the Virus (our story-inspired, family-friendly name for COVID-19) will do next.

Today we were returning to normal, but how could I explain that I didn’t know how long ‘normal’ would last – or that perhaps we are living in a ‘new normal’?

At the very moment I would have usually reached for the perfect picture book for this difficult parenting moment, I realise there is no picture book to help make sense of this experience. Not yet.

No, this time the magic has to come from me.

“You’re right,” I say to him now, “that might happen. And it might be hard.”

I think quickly, glancing at the clock again, calculating how much dental hygiene we will have to sacrifice to get to school on time.

“I need your help,” I say to him decisively. “I need a story about our family.”

He stares at me. The sniffing has stopped.

“Why?” he asks, incredulous.

“Well, like you said,” I venture, discreetly pulling his school clothes from the drawer, “we might have to spend a lot of time at home again, who knows. But if we do,” I pause, handing him the t-shirt and shorts, “if that happens, we’ll need to remember what’s good about being together at home.”

He glances down at the clothes in his hands, frowning.

I rush on, seeing my chance.

“Put those on, and your favourite socks, and I’ll get your breakfast ready. Bring me your favourite book about our family, and we’ll read it before we go.”

I head out the door before he can respond.

I promise I will be here

A few minutes later B appears in school uniform and shoes on (wow!), still shuffling his feet a little but with a sense of purpose. He places the selected book in front of me on the table.

“Perfect!” I cheer as he climbs into my lap and reaches for some toast.

He’s chosen You’re all my favourites(auth. by Sam McBratney, ill. by Anita Jeram), the perfect book for making every child feel they have a unique and treasured place in the world. Even if they have two siblings.

O and T come lean in to hear the story.

When O arrived in our family about three years ago, this book was a gift from a friend who knew that each of our children needed a bit of reassurance about their place in our growing family.

Having read it so many times, O, B and T all know exactly which of the three baby bears most resembles them. Right on cue today, they call this out in all the usual spots.

And today, there’s something about the roundness of the mama and papa bear, their size and soft-looking fur, that reassures me too. Their babies snuggle into them exactly the same way B leans against me now, chewing thoughtfully.

It makes me feel perhaps as a mother, for today at least, I am enough.

B lingers on the last page for a long moment, gazing at the family of bears all snuggled up together.

And then he is off. He jumps off my lap, leaps up the stairs two at a time, comes down with his favourite teddy in hand. He tosses the green lunchbox into his bag.

“Ready to go!” he declares.

“Me too!” T shouts and puts on her school backpack.

“And me!” O says proudly, hand on her chest.

“Okay you wait outside for me and O,” I say. B and T go out the front door with a considerable spring in their step. B is again recounting the names of his 57 peers.

I scoop up O and her little shoes, and my keys.

I lock the front door and place O in the stroller, ready for the short walk to school. Miraculously, we are going to get to those school gates on time.

B and T open the front gate excitedly and are off down the street. As I pull the gate closed behind me, I linger for a moment, suddenly overwhelmed with the significance of leaving home.

I remember how significant and sometimes risky it felt to walk through this gate during lockdown.

I recall how liberating it was to leave home, and how morose it sometimes felt to return. I shut the gate now and will it to feel less significant every time.

With B on one side of the stroller and T on the other, their hands resting on my arms, I think of those round bears sleeping in a contented pile.

I remind myself I am enough to be the whole world for my children in whatever way is needed today, and tomorrow, and in the challenge each new day brings.