As I scurry around here every day in a flutter to get kids awakened, dressed, fed, cleaned, brushed, and all with the hope of a smile on their faces, I sometimes forget what scrapbook memories are being made. Kate is in pre-school for goodness sake. Nicholas and Olivia are both full fledged grade-schoolers and if I chose to, Andrew could be joining them all next year. Holy maloney.
When I was just throwing clothes on one and sending just one out the door each day, I took a bit more time to reflect and dwell on the memory of what we were doing. I made more of a point to ask Nicholas about each and every aspect of his day, simply because it was brand new to all of us. Now, with three in the system, I feel like I know what to expect. And sometimes, I let my familiarity with it all rain on the joy of hearing it through their innocent perspective.
I remember so vividly Nicholas' first days of pre-school. He was not amused, entertained, or bedazzled by any of it. I thought that he would be mesmerized at the thought of scheduled and routine child play and learning, coming from a home of crying infants and sharing toys with toddler siblings. But he was not falling for it.
Prior to our move to this town, we lived in a rural setting. And Nicholas had grown accustomed to seeing the "big bus" come through the yard as it picked up his older cousins for school. He had rightly associated this ride on the bus as the sign that you were ready for school. We moved into a town setting before he started pre-school there.
After a very emotional start to his first day, with tears shed by both of us, he had a few thoughts to share with me the next morning that it was time to go to school. He looked at me and very seriously said, “Mom, why do you have to TAKE me to school?” I told him because that is what moms do. He said, “If they want me, they can come and get me!”
I remember being a bit stunned at his thought process and curious as to what was driving it. When I asked him what made him feel that way, he explained that they had buses for the kids they wanted at school. And if the bus did not pick him up then they must not need him there, therefore, he could stay home.
This is the logic I deal with from this kid. Always have, probably always will. Thankfully, my younger children have not reasoned things out to the level that he had. And thankfully they just follow like little soldiers. But the memory of such discussions makes me realize and reflect on the huge steps that our children are taking. Steps that inevitably lead them further away from us, as parents, but hopefully also lead them to higher levels of independence and responsibility. Exactly what our goal should be as parents.
It is a struggle to slow down. It really is. It takes a conscious effort to stop and take a mental picture of the days we are in now with our children. It is not just a natural tendency, at least for me, to reflect on how far we have come and how quickly we are moving ahead. But it is so necessary. I wrote down Nicholas' first thoughts on pre-school even way back then. Not because I had a blog to post them on, but because I knew that it was something I would want to remember for all of time. Something that I would want to share with him when he is struggling with sending his firstborn, my grandchild, off to school.
These are the moments.
