Leaving home...for Kindergarten
Kindergarten. Somehow I discounted the impact of this milestone, thinking we got the separation anxiety out of the way with preschool last year. My separation anxiety. Not G's. He was thrilled to start preschool and did so without tears. Ditto for kindergarten. He was very, very excited.
And brave. Starting with his school's openhouse, an opportunity for him to meet his teacher and get acquainted with his classroom. I say he was brave because this first step did not go well. His assigned teacher spent less than a minute with him despite our loitering there for quite a long time. Finally, G looked up at me and said "It's ok. It will be better when all the kids are here and we're sitting at the tables." Those were his words verbatum. Brave.
After I had him assigned to another teacher, we had her home visit to look forward to. It was wonderful and G was on to counting the sleeps until his first day of school. His Dad and I? Well were were simply back to sleeping nights now that this concern was alleviated.
We accompanied him to school on Monday, day one and, despite his excitement, he was nervous. As were his best friends K and J. See how they are all twisting their hands?
When I picked G up this first day, the first words out of his mouth were "Why can't I ride the school bus?" When I hesitated, he burst into tears, insisting he wanted to ride the bus. So...after another sleepless night, I contacted the bus garage and set him up to ride the bus home every afternoon. Starting the very next day, Tuesday.
Tuesday afternoon, I resisted the impulse to sneak behind his school, witness him climb on the bus and then follow it home. (And in a sweet aside, I learned from my Mom that she did follow my bus around, spying on me when I first started school. I hadn't known that and it warmed me from the inside out.) I arrived at the bus stop at least 30 minutes ahead of schedule and had to laugh when it pulled in. There was G in the window, huge grin on his face. He loved the bus; Mom and Dad were sleeping again.
The next 'first' came on the first full day of school, Wednesday. G opted for me to drop him off in front of the school each morning, in lieu of me parking and walking him in. Remember the movie Mr. Mom? When Michael Keaton has to drop the kids in that long, slowly moving line in front of their school? This is exactly like that. Hilarious. I inched up until we hit the drop off zone. He climbed out--which took a bit of maneuvering on his part, climbing down out of the Jeep. I handed him his huge backpack with lunchbox attached and he wrestled into it. I handed him a note for his teacher and he slammed the door as hard as he could and headed towards the front door. ALL the while he has this silly grin on his face--like he's eating all of this freedom/independence stuff up. The grin makes his Dad and I smile, but still, it is tinged with that little bit of sadness at the fact that he is growing up and away.
The next day, I had to run G to his six month cleaning at the dentist. The dentist happily announced that G's first adult mollars were already coming in and I should expect him to start losing his baby teeth any day now. In a week filled with 'growing up' moments, this was my last straw.
Arguably one of the toughest weeks as a Mom I've experienced to date. And for his Dad as well. We probably trusted his care and well-being to more strangers in this one week than we have in his entire 5 years. It was also an example--one of many, many instances to come--where our comfort zone will not perfectly align with G's comfort zone. Where G will be the one assuring us instead of the other way around.
Edited to add: After a week of dropping G off to make his own way into the building, we've returned to parking and walking in together. He asked and I happily agreed. It was like getting a little piece of him back. Sadly, he asked for this change in routine after viewing some 9/11 anniversary footage on television. After which he asked, could that ever happen here and, if it did, how would he find me with all those people walking around.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home