Ever since I remembered my mother sobbing on the front porch on my first day of kindergarten, I think I’ve realized that it is indeed an important milestone. After all, through the years she’s talked about what it felt like to watch each one of us make that first crucial step in our lives. As a result, I’ve wondered with great anticipation what it would be like sending the Big-O to school for the first time. I thought about the day beforehand a great deal. (Ironically, the morning of his first day we were late and didn’t get to savor the moment as much as we’d like). However, each day of dropping him off at school since has made me think about this stage of his development over and over again. His dad and I both have the same emotional response each time we drop him off, watching him roll his little Buzz Lightyear backpack over to the kindergarten playground, with a tangible spring in his step, and a big smile on his face while he turns and waves back at us several times. It is the most bittersweet emotion I have ever felt. I am so thrilled for him, for how much he adores school, knowing how much this expanding his world and his mind which he so enjoys feeling grow. In the same moment, my heart feels torn apart by the realization that his baby/toddlerhood is truly over, and there’s much that will never be the same again. The thought ties my stomach up in knots even now. It’s become a joke in our house that I constantly order the kids to “Stop growing!” They always laugh and insist that they will keep growing, regardless of what I say. With my personality being the way it is, I feel despair that there truly is nothing I can do about it. In moments like these, I try to remember some advice that Susan (a dear friend from the canyon) shared with me. She has four grown children of her own, and she said that she and Don just tried to focus on enjoying every stage that their kids were in to its fullest. If their children were small, they would enjoy that stage to the utmost. As their kids aged, they sought to suck the marrow out of each emerging phase of their development.
There are times that I wish my difficulties in raising the three kids when they were really little didn’t get in the way of me doing just what she talked about. Sometimes I think I allowed part of it to pass me by in the midst of my desperation and self-pity, and I mourn the loss of that. At the same time, I know I’ve had some incredible moments with all of them in their early years, and I try to now focus on the joy of the present moment. Much of that with my cute kindergartner has been priceless. I have to record some of those choice moments:
- I’ve LOVED witnessing his breakneck progress in learning to read. He gets so excited, that he literally bounces up and down and giggles as he puts letters and sounds together into something meaningful. It reminds me so much of how much I loved (and vividly remember to this day) learning to read
- He doggedly learned to tie his own shoes, even before his cast came off his broken arm.
- He lost his first tooth last week, and couldn’t wait for the tooth fairy to bring him a book
- He’s happily learned how to empty out the dishwasher and do the dishes, as well as vacuum. It gives him such a sense of confidence, and I cannot believe what an enormous help he is at only 5 ½.
- Yesterday when I picked him up from school he immediately announced, “Guess what, Mom! I saw my friend Eli was kissed by a girl! I’m real. It’s true. She kissed him on the nose! Hee-hee-hee-hee.” Oh, boy.
