Big School Today

Last week Monster turned three.  I'll post pictures and words regarding this big milestone as soon as I upload all the pics (which I can only guarantee will be before his fourth birthday.)  Three is big for a lot of reasons, but around here the biggest deal was that three meant big school.

Monster has been attending an early intervention program at a school for the deaf and hard of hearing two mornings a week.  I stayed at school during the three and a half hours, attending his therapy sessions and seeing him in the hallway.  Then together we went home in time for lunch.  It was the perfect combination of stimulating independent activity for him, and parental connection for me.

All that changes on the third birthday.  After three the kids graduate to the “big school.”  Suddenly they attend school five full days a week.  I have to pack Monster a lunch each day.  I no longer stay at school while he’s there and have no clue what he has doing all day and the friends he is making.  Though it is the same school he has been attending Monster has all new teachers and classmates and is in a different part of the building.  It’s a big adjustment for everyone.

Yesterday we put on our new school outfit and had breakfast out of our monkey lunch box because someone just couldn’t wait until school to eat grapes out of new Tupperware containers.  We took traditional “first day of school pictures” in front of the house.  And then we loaded up in the car and set off for our first day in the big school.

There was all sorts of chaos when we arrived.  Crying kids not ready for the new week to begin and a broken laminator.  Typical Monday stuff that did nothing to ease my mama heart.  Monster walked into his classroom and sat down in someone else’s seat.  When the seat’s rightful owner less the politely pointed this out, his kind teacher showed him the seat with his picture on it.  Monster moved without any fuss and sat down ready to begin.

I knew this was my cue to leave, quickly before he fully realized he had an opportunity to get upset.  Tears in my eyes I gave him a quick kiss on the top of his sweet head and walked out.  I put my sunglasses on while I was still inside to mask my water-filled eyes.  And I walked out, leaving my heart sitting in a tiny green seat with his picture on it in a school too far from home for my liking.

And I know this is all terribly normal.  We’re supposed to let our kids grow up and away.  But three seems awfully early to have friends I don’t know about and lunch out of a monkey lunch box.  It seems too soon to send him away from me all day.

But 2:45 was there before I knew it and it seems we both survived.  I accomplished much more than usual with one less tiny but found the quiet of his absence deafening.  He spent the day proudly proclaiming “big school today” to everyone who asked how he was doing, and picked up new vocabulary.  All evening he said “’scuse me! ‘Scuse me!” a phrase his lips had never uttered before yesterday. 

And isn’t this what I’ve signed up for?  A lifetime of letting him grow up and away from me?  In the early days of his infancy I dreamt about this moment when he would not be solely dependent on me all day every day.  I longed for the time when I’d finally have some time to myself and he’d be at school. 

And then in a flash here we are.  And I’m sobbing in my car wishing I could take him back home with me.  Parenting is a tricky little business, isn’t it?