Lot people sleep

Cleo, the child psychologists and the how-to books tell us that you won't remember, with any meaningful clarity, a single day of this, your third year. So allow me to step in, and to act as a sort of virtual memory:

On Monday, you went to school for the first time. The daycare center for the University of Cape Town: a series of small concrete rooms and galvanized tin roofs over a modest playground. Your teacher was named Elsie, and she exuded a patience that can only be accrued with years of child care under one's belt. We explained to you, for the fifth or sixth time, that you'd spend several hours in school, and would come get you; we led you about the room, and met some classmates of yours - a lovely young boy named Nils, and a docile, obedient girl named Audrey. We then had to say our goodbyes, and we could hear you crying from the other end of the daycare center. But when we came back, three hours later, that was you sitting with a certain heroic self-composure, eating macaroni at the tiny table as all of your classmates took their early nap. And, later, when I asked you what you thought of school, you said, in a matter-of-fact tone that beautifully recalled the voice of your great-grandmother Betty, "Lot people sleep."