One Week
Next week at this time, I will have all three kids in school. My emotions have fired back and forth between elation and a low-pitched mourning. It is the end of an era, and I'm not sure how I feel about it.
Back in those predawn hours of the baby and toddler years, I'd stare bleary-eyed towards the future. Those were precious hours, when I could remember to appreciate them. Feeling duck-downy hair under my chin, hearing the deep breathing of a child wrapped in my arms, watching the sun rise and greeting another day with My Life's Work nestled in my lap.
The days when my kids would all be old enough to leave the nest for a big part of the day seemed far, far away. I would have long conversations with friends, anticipating the coming freedom. For a while there, using the bathroom without the possibility of having a conversation about Pokemon seemed to be the pinnacle. Chores would get done! Dinner would get planned! I could work out unmolested, or run errands that are painful with even a single kid in tow.
Of course, all that was based on my assumption that I would not be working full-time. C'est la vie.
I remember blogging about my jealousy of other moms who had actual kid-free time.
And yet, with each dawn, I realized that I was a short-timer. These kids were growing like weeds, absorbing knowledge like sponges, and preparing to fly. Suddenly this whole kids out in the world thing didn't seem like a good idea, and I was tempted to keep them close, stunt their growth, clip their wings and keep them with me always.
And then they'd spill an entire gallon of juice on the newly mopped floor or something. As Jenijen once said, there is a market for Military Boarding Preschool.
When my oldest daughter began kindergarten, I cried and blogged and cried some more.
When my son began kindergarten, I was sad, but I recovered.
By the next year? I danced in the parking lot.
When my youngest daughter walks into that classroom next Wednesday, I honestly don't know what I'll do.
That bleary-eyed glimpse of the future is coming into sharp focus. I think I need to go snuggle some sleeping kids.
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Comments
That's how it goes - crying one minute and then dancing in the parking lot, the next - at our house, anyway.
Good luck...*sniff*...oh, and...BOOYAH!
Posted by: Liz | August 7, 2008 6:19 AM
Aw! Give'em an extra snuggle for me.
Posted by: Sean | August 7, 2008 7:08 AM
I'll never be ready....
Posted by: Maria | August 7, 2008 10:04 AM
I hadn't thought much about it until someone asked how "I" was going to make it when my first starts Kindergarten. I had been all about him starting, not me. He is a socialite, pure social creature like his mom. However, he has become a little overwhelmed with the whole idea. I thought I was handling it just fine...til I went read this post...now I don't know, I may cry too.
We've owned a daycare and he has been going to "school" for a while, but he knows this is different, big school this is!
I don't know how I'll cope......I've been in the same building with him while he has been at "school" for over a year and I knew his every move...just thinking about the things he has told his teachers that I've had to clarify (like my mom said we would skip brushing our teeth today b/c we didn't have time), what happens when I'm not there to straighten the teacher out on our home crazy-ness.
How will Ditto Boy cope? Heck, how am I going to cope? I know I will be a little weirded out by having just me and the 3 year old (mini-me) and I will have to help him figure out what to do with the whole day, but...but what about the one in the big wide world without me to guide him?
Posted by: Jerri Ann | August 7, 2008 5:09 PM
It is such a time of torn emotions, isn't it? You expressed it so well!
Posted by: Kristen | August 7, 2008 5:21 PM
Awww. You know you'll cry. For a minute. Then you will get over THAT foolishness, and do the happy dance!
Posted by: Tammy | August 7, 2008 11:40 PM
This is not some thing I am looking forward either. My oldest starts preschool this year. So I am a couple of years behind you. I don't know what I will do either the day my youngest goes to kindergarten. I think it will be a sad day too. Good luck.
Posted by: Ellyn | August 8, 2008 4:58 AM
Jenny,
You are working way too hard. I am your knight in shining armor. You need maids, tutors for your children, a sauna room and lots of money
to travel and see more of the world.
Posted by: Roy A Hewitt | August 8, 2008 9:48 PM
Aww - as much as I wish for some kid-free moments, I'm not looking forward to the growing up . . .
Posted by: Mozi Esme's Mommy | August 9, 2008 2:50 AM
My youngest won't start kinder until next year - and I already have mixed feeling about it! I am counting down the days until we won't have her in full time daycare for the full year. Yet that also means my baby is taking another step towards leaving the house one day. Why were we not warned that raising children would make us so indecisive?
Posted by: Luc | August 9, 2008 12:13 PM
My little one is a preschooler and each time when I look at her growing, getting smarter and nicer, and noisier... and independent... I start wishing of a new pregnancy...
Posted by: Polina | August 12, 2008 8:46 AM
My youngest is 6 months old and my oldest is almost 17. I can't believe that my oldest is heading to college in a few years. I wonder why that makes me even more anxious when I hold the baby. I just snuggle him close and bury my head in his neck. I can almost feel time flying by as I hold my little baby. I know that I will blink and he will be waving goodbye with his new back pack on his as he heads into his first day of kindergarten. So I take more time to snuggle and hold and play with him and pray with all of my heart that I will know deep in my heart that I stole every minute I could of his little growing up years. :)
Posted by: Jen | August 13, 2008 11:51 AM
Why'd you have to go and say that!??!!...Now I've got to let them stay up 'just a LITTLE bit longer' so I can watch their little eyes get droopy and blink, blink..........blink. Sweet dreams, little big girls.
Posted by: ML | August 15, 2008 5:48 PM