Kindergarten. The
word is German in origin, and literally means “children’s garden.” This brings to mind a happy place, filled
with flowers, cute little googly eyed bugs, and frolicking fun. A garden filled with joy and love and happy
happy fun time for little children, only a magic school bus ride away. Why
then, is it so damn hard to watch your baby walk out that door, climb those big
bus steps, and disappear?
Let’s backtrack about five years. Five years ago I would dream about this day
the way a poor starving college student dreams about a steak dinner and a glass
of good wine. The first day all of my
children are officially in all day school.
It was like an unimaginable out of reach scenario at the time, beyond
the scope of my fragile sleep deprived little brain. I mean when a person
spends every waking hour, and several sort of half waking hours, wiping
unidentifiable sticky substances out of every crevice imaginable, a single day
without those mountainous responsibilities seems like it can’t come soon enough.
Suddenly though, that day is here. The day every member of your little flock
loads cheerfully into the big yellow bus, completely and blissfully unaware of
the emotional hurricane that they are leaving behind in the doorway. You smile and wave, keeping your cool as to
not alert the children to your impending attack of crazy, and watch as they
ride away, their little minds and bodies now entrusted to the professionals who
will spend the majority of every day with them for the next 12 years.
Tonight, the night before this happens to me, I feel a
mixture of pride and sadness. I am proud
because I have managed to keep two small children alive and mostly happy for seven
years. I have managed to survive
infancy, a blurry time period of which I have little recollection beyond sometimes
having a shower and wearing clothes that didn’t have an elastic waistband. I plowed right on through the toddler years,
in which I went to bed every night counting myself as a gold star parent simply
because I managed to keep my children from running into traffic, swallowing a
thumbtack, suffocating in blankets/bags/the dog, or poking a fork into a random
outlet that day. I lived through the
preschool years during which I may have single handedly supported the wine
industry just to make it through bouts of “You’re not the boss of me!” and “You’re
not my friend anymore!”
Despite my smug feelings of pride on having kept my kids
alive until school age, I am sad as well.
There are lingering doubts. Did I
make enough Rice Krispy’s treats with them? Did we do enough crafts involving tempera
paint and cotton balls? I never did sign
them up for that Mommy and Me Baby Yoga Class.
Yes, I kept them alive during their precious formative years, but did I
do enough? Did I adequately prepare
their fragile little minds for the rigors of 12 years of education? Will they be ok without me? Will I
be ok without them?
As I put my little guy to bed tonight, I asked him if he was
excited for Kindergarten tomorrow. He
told me he was, and he couldn’t wait to see his friends, and he was very
excited for soccer, and he couldn’t wait to check out a book at the library,
and he was disappointed that tomorrow is only a half day because he won’t get
to have lunch in the cafeteria. Hearing
the excitement in his voice, and seeing the joy and anticipation in his eyes, I
realized that I have done enough. I have
raised a child who is eager to take this next big step in his life. I looked him over, noting how articulate he
is in his communication, and how agile he was at climbing into his big bunk bed
tonight, and it hit me full force that I no longer have a baby. He is ready, so ready to start this next huge
phase of his life, and we will all be ok.
“Mommy,” he said, noting my far off space cased expression, “I
need my goodnight kiss. I won’t wipe it
off.”
I gave him his goodnight kiss, and walked out. I will give him, and my little girl, a
goodbye kiss tomorrow morning on the first day of school, and survive the first day I
will be without their chatter and pitter patter all day. Then, I will give them a hello kiss when they come home. And I hope that there
will never come a day when they will wipe it off.
