Well, we’ve made it three days into the school year and if I’m honest, those three days seem like a blur. It’s different this year because first grade is on the other side of the school with, well, the rest of everyone in school, and their parents. We are apart from the safety of the gated kindergarten playground and room entrances. While our new side is exciting and full of hustle and bustle, it doesn’t allow for me to feel interaction with Mrs. Caceres or even catch a glimpse of his classroom like I was able to do last year. Until volunteering starts, I think it will just be that way. In the morning, all the grades line up on the top level of pavement per their class. They wait for their teacher to come get them, then they all walk, single-file, down a paved hill and into the school. (The picture tries to show the teacher’s sign and the kids lining up behind it). On the pick up we wait at the bottom of the hill for his class to start piling outside and he can only come to me if Mrs. Caceres sees me, then she lets him go. I like that feature, that they pay such close attention to their safety. He’s happy and each day has been great, he said.

It was just now this morning that he and I went through something interesting together. I was certain that it would be a sleep- in kind of morning – especially for Logan because it has been hard to wake him up even at 6:30 the last three days. Well, right after I came down at 6:30, here he came after me, looking very sleepy, not ready to wake up yet. I suggested to him, lovingly, to please go back and lay down and there was certainly another hour before he should be getting up today. Well, there he stood arguing with me and making ultimatums-like the only thing he would want to do if he stayed up stairs would be to watch a show on my bed. I explained that that wouldn’t be ok this morning and if he would just go rest quietly for even 30 more minutes, that would be good. Well, there he sat at the top of the stairs crying. So, while part of me grew frustrated with his lack of listening and my desire for him to say to me, “Sure mom, your right, see you in 30 minutes,” the other part of me was looking at my crying child, who I am realizing that I miss so much already, three days in. I asked him to please come down and through his tears he said, “Mom, I just want to be down here by you.” So, of course my water works factory opened up and there we were, hugging and crying first thing on Saturday morning. He told me that he missed me and just wanted to be by me. And, so I told him how much I missed him and that I always want him to want to be by me.

During these Hallmark moments, I often have images of what it will be like when he’s much older, when he has grown straight past me (he already reaches my shoulder!), and says in a grown up voice that he wants to be by me. But, will he? Who knows. He probably will want to be by me, but he may not actually say it. Excuse me while I go get a Kleenex, I can’t see the screen through the tears coming out of my eyes. I torture myself with these kind of things sometimes. Is this normal in motherhood? Do dads do this? If you know me, or even read the accounts of Logan’s first days of school at this time last year, perhaps you knew this was coming. Maybe you expected it before now. I did too, but you can’t plan for an emotional melt down on the account of your kids growing up. But there, it happened. I feel better. I was actually wondering, myself, why it hadn’t happened yet. Had I grown so accustomed to all of this growing up, big first grade guy, that it really wasn’t such a big deal? I’m grateful that it is as easy as this, though, I’m grateful that my guy is easy going and not afraid of school. Even last night at dinner, Eli asked Logan if it was scary. Was school scary? And, Logan,kind of smiled and said, “No, Eli, school is not scary at all!”

I’m so, so grateful. Everything will even out – our routine, our sleep schedule, everything else in between. But, in the meantime, is it too early in the day to go take a nap?