I photographed my oldest child in front of her new school and kissed her goodbye at the Kindergarten door, for the first time.
Maybe I expected it to be a bigger deal than it was. Melo just hugged her teacher and went into the room. But I will always carry the memory of pushing 42 pounds of little brothers in the double stroller while watching her race through the park toward the school on her bicycle, which she just learned to ride without training wheels in May, tipping and swaying precariously under the weight of her purple backpack stuffed with pencils, crayons, glue, paint, playdoh… all the supplies on the list, plus a granola bar just in case….
She asked for pancakes for lunch “because that’s what they had in the library book.” So we ate pancakes and omelettes filled with the neighbor’s zucchini and ignored the little technicality that the boy in the library book was going to a.m. Kindergarten and she was not.
On her first day of preschool two years ago I forgot all about it. I was sitting at my desk and glanced at my computer clock at five minutes to noon. My stomach dropped to the floor and my heart pounded with an adrenaline jolt as I realized she was supposed to be 10 miles away in 20 minutes, and we hadn’t had lunch. So I stuffed the baby into his carseat, shoved a sandwich and carrot sticks into Melody’s hands, and we were off, eating our way down I-25. And to think I nearly forgot to go pick her up three hours later!
I’m glad today is different. I wonder what she’s been doing for the past couple of hours – wonder if her teacher has noticed yet that she can already read – wonder if the other kids are being nice to her. I miss her but I don’t. The house is quiet while the 42 pounds of toddler and baby take naps and nobody is asking about games or snacks or saying the forbidden “B” word (bored). But I still can’t shake a tinge of apprehension about entering a new stage of life. Today is more than the first day of Kindergarten, it’s the first day of many school years to come.
