Back to school

I’ve read or heard parent’s stories about dropping their kids off for the first day of kindergarten and how hard emotionally it was for them. For some reason I never found myself relating. I often wondered if this made me uncaring or even (gasp) a bad mother because I didn’t see it as big of a deal as the other moms made it out to be. Junior High, however, changed that for me.

After registration a week ago, the time flew by and before I knew it, Sunday night was here and school was starting the next morning. My daughter went to bed late. Fortunately she was still able to wakeup early to get dressed in her carefully-planned outfit and went about reestablishing our morning routine. We were running on time and things were going smoothly. Soon we were in the car on the way to the bus stop. Once we arrived we we found no sign of other kids waiting for the bus to come. Either we were way too early or we had missed the bus. After a phone call to my friend, we discovered it was the latter.

On the way to the school I couldn’t help but feel like things were happening all too fast. Yes I made my daughter stop before getting into the car to take the obligatory-first-day-of-school-photo, but was it good enough? No. I was too zoomed in and couldn’t see her outfit. and I only got 1 image.

So I snapped a photo in the car on the way while stopped at a stop sign. What did her expression say? “smile to oblige her but c’mon, mom – get me to school already! Get back to driving!”

We pulled into the school’s parking lot and as she got out I made her take a step back so I could get a photo of her outfit.

She told me she loved me and closed the door and hurried off to the front door. “Wait!” I thought, “Do you know where to go? Are you sure you can open your locker? Do you need me to come do it for you? Should I walk to all your classes with you to make sure you don’t get lost? Can’t I continue to protect you and hold your hand? Are you sure you’re ready?” I knew the answer though. She didn’t even turn around to wave goodbye as she slipped through the doors.

I fought back the lump in my throat as I drove away. In a way missing the bus was a blessing; I learned I need to accept my baby is growing up, as painful as it is; and I experienced the pain the other mothers talked about, albeit a few years late. Now I’m a member of their imaginary club.

My Discover card commercial would say:
Registration fees – $300
New school clothes/make-up/supplies – $250
Watching your baby grow up – painfully priceless