Go-gatsu-byo

"Go-gatsu-byo", translated into English, is "May Sickness". In a way, it is kind of similar to "homesickness" because what it is, basically, is when small children who have started preschool in Japan (in April) but didn't cry or seemed to have any kind of seperation anxiety, started to cry and refuse to go to preschool in May (especially at the beginning of May after Golden Week - the name of a week-long holiday in Japan starting from the end of April to beginning of May). I think my daughter might be having this May Sickness.

This little girl of mine, being an only child and having had 3 years of constant attention from both parents (since daddy works at home and mommy only works a few hours a week outside the home), apparently had no problem saying good-bye to me when I dropped her off at school that very first day of school. She seemed to enjoy herself immensely and looked forward to going to school each day. But then, the day after the holidays when I went to pick her up, she told me that she cried at school. I asked her why, but she just said, "I don't know." I asked if she had a fight with her classmates and she said no. Then, I asked if she was lonely and she said, "yes." The next day, which was a Friday, she started kicking her feet and screaming when I took her to school. I had to literally drag her and handed her over to her teacher that day. Poor thing :( She came home that day with a different set of clothes. Apparently, she had wet herself (she's 3.5 years old and have been out of diapers for exactly one year with only a few accidents in between, so that was odd).

Last night, she woke up at 2 AM crying about how she didn't want to go to school. She then told me that the reason was because she didn't want to use the toilet at school. My daughter doesn't really like using the toilet at home either (not sure why .. I think she just doesn't like the process of having to take her pants off and flushing and washing hands, etc, but I don't know for sure). So I promised her I'll talk to her teacher and see what we can do about it. I don't think there's really anything we could do about it, though. She'll just have to get used to it.

But anyway, this morning she was fine. I let her sleep in a little, tried not to rush her too much, gave her a small popsicle after breakfast and took her to school. She didn't cry and just smiled and waved good-bye to me as I took off. We'll see what happens when I go pick her up in an hour or so.

May sickness or just toilet sickness? Hmmm..